


Styx Funeral Home

by OhNoHello



Series: Funeral Home AU [1]
Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chronic Illness, Drabble Collection, Family Drama, Fluff, Funeral Home, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sibling Love, Tattoos, content warnings in chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 57,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhNoHello/pseuds/OhNoHello
Summary: The Chthonic brothers work in their mother's funeral home and have moved in with one another after the diagnosis of Hypnos' chronic fatigue syndrome. They live together, supporting one another, with not just caretaking for Hypnos but the emotional support they all need.A series of drabbles from the funeral home auCHAPTERS 11 and 17 NEW
Relationships: Ares/Thanatos (Hades Video Game), Charon & Hypnos & Thanatos (Hades Video Game), Charon/Hermes (Hades Video Game), Hypnos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Series: Funeral Home AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186487
Comments: 111
Kudos: 302





	1. Table of Contents

Howdy y'all.

@MomoSweetPeach made this lovely funeral home au [(first post seen here)](https://twitter.com/MomoSweetPeach/status/1357155223475658755?s=20) and I was immediately smitten by this lovely and charming idea. It sparked my imagination and we've been basically yelling about it for days and inspired me to write little stories of the brothers living together and their loved ones around them. So I've decided to put them all in a collection.

I'm giving this a table of contents because I want to put these in chronological order, but I might not be writing these/posting them off the bat that way. I'm going to try to post them in batches so I'm not completely flooding tags. So if I post a batch of new drabbles, I'll highlight here which ones are new. Also if you're just here for one ship or for certain content, I'll point it out here too.

 **TABLE OF CONTENTS**  
2\. Greenery - charon/hermes, fluff 

3\. First Date - Charon/Hermes 

4\. Panic - Charon/Hermes hurt/comfort 

5\. Shut Up - Charon/Hermes 

6\. Good Advice - Skelly & Charon 

7\. Aftermath - Charon/Hermes 

8\. Apologies - thanatos & hypnos, angst 

9\. Brothers - charon & thanatos & hypnos, charon/hermes, angst 

10\. Late Night - Hypnos & Thanatos 

11\. Can We Talk - Charon/Hermes **NEW**

12\. Surprise - Charon/Hermes, Thanatos fluff 

13\. Quinoa - charon & thanatos & hypnos, fluff 

14\. The Home - Hypnos and ensemble fluff 

15\. Tattoos - Charon & Thanatos & Hypnos, fluff 

16\. Homecoming - Zag & Than, Zagreus/Hypnos 

17\. Bad Day - Hypnos & Than & Charon **NEW**

18\. Night Out - Zag & Than & Meg 

19\. Sick - Thanatos & ensemble

20\. The Body - Charon/Hermes **CONTENT WARNING**

21\. Oblivious - Zagreus/Hypnos 

22\. Dinner - Chthonic bros, Zag, & Nyx 

23\. Swing Set - zagreus/hypnos, fluff 

24\. Run - zagreus/hypnos, thanatos, fluff 

25\. Control - Thanatos/Ares, spicy 

26\. Hickey - Thanatos/Ares, Charon & Thanatos, fluff 

27\. Tension - thanatos/ares 

28\. Twice - Thanatos/Ares, spicy 

29\. Thrice - Thanatos/Ares 

30\. Love - Charon/Hermes, Thanatos & Hypnos 

31\. Dancing - Zagreus/Hypnos 

32\. Can't - Thanatos/Ares 

Please enjoy <3

Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	2. Greenery - charon/hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon visits Hermes at work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick Charon/Hermes drabble about Charon making the horrible not thought out decision to visit Hermes at his job.

Elysium Nursery was a haven of green pressed up against domed glass windows. Vines snaked up the intersecting posts that formed the skeleton of the building. Color sprinkled the bushes as flora fought for solar attention. Displays of the nursery’s capabilities for landscaping services stood proud at the entrance, backed by hanging flower pots. Rows upon rows of trees, shrubbery, and flowers stood just off to the side with meandering customers leaning down to read descriptions on tags.

Charon stood just outside in the middle of the parking lot, questioning his decisions in life.

His hands curled into fists until they cramped. He wriggled his fingers to get the blood flowing again, his eyes unblinking as he stared down the door and the sign that read OPEN in a curled font.

Despite having used Elysium for the funeral home’s floral arrangements for years, Charon had never been inside. He had never been the one to make the orders and save for that clandestine moment, he had never accepted them either. He worked with the dead, not with the needs of the living. He had no particular investment for flowers.

Until. . .

A car drove down the parking lot and honked when coming across the Charon shaped obstacle. Charon glared at the car and its driver held up its hands in apology.

Charon sighed. They were right. He needed to quit stalling.

He crossed the parking lot and stepped inside Elysium.

It smelled of dirt. Not the kind of dirt found on forest floors that swirled into gelatinous mud in the rain, but a clean sort of dirt. Dirt that had been raised and carefully groomed to become the deep rich brown that adorned every pot in the place. He was greeted with an inordinately large fern that stood proud in the center of the store, surrounded with racks upon racks of gardening tools and accoutrement. Exterior design decor that was found in every grandmother’s kitschy garden. Charon inspected an iridescent reflective ball that stood on a pedestal.

“Can I help you?” a sweet voice asked.

Charon looked up to find a woman with long pink hair that swirled almost without gravity around her. Her smile was sweet with just the right tinge of fake. She dressed in romantic ruffles and a plunging neckline, expectant on Charon's attention. Perfectly primed and trained in customer service, but hardly for the customer's benefit. 

He shook his head and walked further into the nursery, ignoring the way her mouth dropped open in offense.

The greenhouse in the back attempted to be neat, but the overflow of lush leaves made that impossible. Rows that should have been wide were crowded and intense chlorophyll veined greenery brushed at Charon’s sides. It was quiet in the heat of the greenhouse, the soft soothing music of the shop played at a dulcet tone over widely interspersed speakers. Charon had heard once that plants reacted well to music and he wondered if it was for their benefit or the shoppers.

He rounded a corner and his breath caught in his throat.

Standing at the far end stood the delivery boy. He pulled a modest potted plant off the shelf and put it into a crate on a flatbed cart, humming along with the music over the speakers.

Charon had never been particularly social. He didn’t go out, he didn’t talk to people, he generally tried to avoid any and all human interaction as much as he possibly could. He liked his job where his clients didn’t talk.

He never particularly liked people.

It had taken some time and multiple multiple instances of Charon running into, sometimes literally, the delivery boy for him to admit. . . he liked Hermes. He liked his smile and his laugh. He liked the way he thought Charon was funny. He liked his jokes and how fast he talked. He liked his uniform and how short he was. He liked the way his hair was attempted to be pushed back but still looked wayward and windswept. He liked his earrings. He liked the way Hermes would sometimes lean in closer, get into Charon’s space, invading his own personal bubble the way he had invaded Charon’s life.

Charon liked Hermes.

Charon watched Hermes do his work, taking in all the little things he liked about him, and did not realize he was staring until Hermes noticed him. Two hands drumming on the bar of the flatbed, he paused, eyes wide and perked up in mild surprise. The same surprise that transferred to Charon when he realized he was creeping on the delivery boy.

That smile Charon liked so much split Hermes’ face.

“Well hey there boss,” Hermes said and Charon liked that too. The little pet names he gave people, but they felt special to Charon. “Didn’t see you there. Are you here to make an order?”

Charon shook his head and immediately regretted it. It would have been a good excuse to be there, a nice lie to cover up his real intentions.

“Oh?” Hermes leaned on the bar, crossing one leg over the other to tap his toes against the cement. “Why are you here?”

Charon looked around, looking for the first thing he could see, looking for some excuse.

<plant> he said.

Hermes’ brows rose. He had admitted that his ASL was a little rusty and it took him a minute to remember the sign.

“You’re here to buy a plant?” he asked.

Charon nodded.

“Well what kind of plant?” Hermes asked, his voice sounding like laughter and sunlight. “We got lots of plants here, big man. Are you looking for some flowers? We got some peonies that look great hanging from a porch. Do you have a porch? Or a balcony? Or maybe a fern. You seem like a ficus kind of guy.”

Charon looked around, his eyes scanning over all his options, and he pointed to the nearest one, choosing without any deliberation. Hermes leaned to look at the figure buried among the leaves.

“A cactus?” he laughed. “You sure are full of surprises there boss.”

Charon stood still, hand still pointed at the prickly plant with its single flower bloomed like a hat. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being surprising. He liked being even, he liked his routine.

He liked how Hermes had disrupted it.

Hermes waited for Charon, to do what Charon didn’t know. When he didn’t move, Hermes leaned against the bar, resting his elbow on the metal and cupping his chin in his hand. His smile soft and dreamy.

“You’re not here for flowers are you?”

Charon had been found out. He felt his face heat and it had nothing to do with the humid temperature of the greenhouse. Anxiety pattered his heart and tickled just under his skin, urging him to run. He turned to power walk back to the exit, tail between his legs. This was a stupid idea, he shouldn’t have come.

“Hey Charon?”

Charon paused. He could see Hermes through the rows of plants, still leaned against his palm, framed by greenery and smiling slyly among the leaves. He ran his teeth over his lower lip in a slow bite, gaze darting down Charon’s frame before meeting his eyes again.

“It was good to see you,” Hermes said.

Charon bristled, breathing in deep. His hands curled into fists again. He bowed his head and barrelled out of the nursery, determined to go back to where no one talked to him.

He hoped he might run into Hermes again.

Some time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	3. First Date - Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon and Hermes' first date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ref, remember this is in chronological order, before Charon reunites with his siblings.

That particular part of downtown was what could best be described as bustling. Too close to traffic, to many lights, too much population. The street was better suited for night life with clubs, bars, restaurants and an assortment of odd stores that were only open at odd hours. It was hardly suited for residential living. 

Charon had never been to that part of the city before. He actively avoided the entirety of "down town" when he could. Urban living in any of its forms was in direct opposition to his disposition. 

It had been a night of firsts. 

"And that's Dio I guess, I think we're supposed to be worried about him, but." Hermes paused to laugh. He swung his hand back and forth. The one that held Charon's. "That's about it for my siblings. You would've seen one of them or another if you bothered to come out of that cave of yours." 

Hermes smiled up at Charon, the city lights twinkling in his eyes. 

The date had been going well. Remarkably well. Charon didn't know what to expect when Hermes had asked him out, just a coffee was all he had said. A coffee had turned into a walk, a walk turned into dinner, dinner turned into staying in the restaurant until the hostess asked them to free up the table. 

Hermes was everything Charon hadn't expected. A barrelling ball of unstoppable energy that careened into him and took him along for the ride. He managed to drag Charon out of his home, out of his comfort zone, into the city. He managed to pull Charon into conversation and touch, all things Charon had written off long ago. 

Hermes had taken Charon on a date. And it was good. 

"My family is a little sprawling, only because my dad got around." Hermes rolled his eyes. "That's a nice way of putting it. But at least I got my siblings out of it. We're pretty close, as far as blood relations go anyways. You got any siblings?" 

Charon paused. The first date had been exposing but Charon was still unsure how much to expose. Did he share about his estranged family? Brothers that he hadn't spoken with in some time. What was etiquette on a first date. 

He nodded. 

Hermes was far better at traversing a conversation. He could see down the avenues and knew which ones weren't worth exploring. Not just yet. 

Not yet. 

Yet. 

Hermes accepted Charon's half an answer and kept to where waters were safest. 

"Anyways," Hermes sighed, pulsating a squeeze on their hands. "I wouldn't be surprised if I have more brothers and sisters out there somewhere." 

Their pace was already slow, a meandering gait that went against everything Charon knew Hermes to be. They had pissed off more than one pedestrian that sped walk around them, but Charon couldn't bring himself to care. 

Hermes slowed more until finally they were stopped. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, the sounds of the city died out, unimportant compared to the man staring up at him. 

Hermes sighed, great and deep. He smiled, a different one from the joy and exhilaration he had worn all day. Soft and a little somber, his eyes grew heavy as he inspected Charon. 

"I swear, if you're related to me," he said, hushed and whispered. "I'll be so upset." 

Charon could feel his heart pounding against his sternum. His face ached from the foreign act of smiling, no matter how slight. 

"Well. This is me," Hermes said, jerking his head to the small entrance wedged between store fronts. 

His gaze moved down Charon's face, down his neck, down to his chest. Inspecting him and, from his expression, liking what he saw. His fingers curled around Charon's lapel. 

"I don't want this to end," Hermes said, so quiet that only Charon, at that close a distance, could hear. 

Charon followed the slight tug as he was guided to bend down. As Hermes' heels left the ground. As soft lips pressed against his own. 

The world disappeared, dissipating into a blur of light and color until there was nothing left. Nothing but Hermes. 

It had been some time since Charon had last kissed anyone and even then there hadn't been many. None of them were what Hermes gave him. Not the build up of the day or the gentle careful way Hermes touched Charon. Handling him like he wasn't a looming, intimidating figure, like he wasn't a closed off creature from the rest of the world. 

Like he was wanted. 

Hermes pulled back for a breath before tilting in again, encouraging Charon to dance with him. Soft lips pulling on Charon's, a gentle breath against his cheek. The lick of a tongue swiped across his lower lip. 

Charon tentatively touched Hermes' jaw, running his fingers over soft skin. He traced the frame of a heart shaped face, high cheekbones, all features that Charon wanted to commit to memory. Up through thick hair with just a touch of product in it, over the delicate curve of an ear. Hermes' earrings sang as Charon ran his touch through them, cascading in a wave. 

A quiet chuckle buzzed against his lips and Charon could feel Hermes smile. He pulled away and the world came back, the volume turning back up. 

Hermes kept looking, kept inspecting Charon. He licked his lips and rubbed the fabric of Charon's lapel between his index and thumb. 

"Okay," he said, his breath hot on Charon's face. "Okay. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to ask you if you want to come inside." 

Charon's blood pumped hard in his veins. He could feel his breath stop involuntarily, knowing this invite was not just 'coffee.' 

"And you don't have to say anything," Hermes said, ghosting his lips over Charon's once more. "I already know the answer." 

The day had been sliding along so smoothly, not the meet of a brief coffee date Charon had been expecting. As Hermes took a step back, sauntering with his knowing smile, Hermes couldn't help but agree that they both knew this was the natural course of things. 

Hermes dug his teeth into his lip and took one more dangerous step back, the space between them saying more than the intimate proximity. He turned his back on Charon and went to the little door. He unlocked it and looked over his shoulder, flicking his eyes over Charon's still hunched form.

"Well?" he asked. 

As if Charon had any other options. 

He followed Hermes up the stairs. 

____

Hermes' bed was small. Living alone there had been no need for anything larger. Charon's long legs spanned the entirety of it and his heels dangled off the end. He lay on his back, in the dark, listening to Hermes breathe. 

The lights from the city flickered across Hermes' sleeping face, each deep sleep laden breath cresting the rise and fall of his blanket. He lay on his side, his hand rested on the center of Charon's chest. 

Charon watched him. 

Everything,  _ everything _ from that day had been something Charon never had before. The end, that end, laying in bed with Hermes, watching him sleep, was an entirely new situation for Charon. Alien and foreign to everything he had been built up of. 

Hermes took another deep breath in and nuzzled deeper into his pillow, his hand creeping across Charon. A tiny smile quirked the corners of his lips and Charon couldn't tell if it was from a good dream or if Hermes' smile was just a permanent fixture. 

Charon watched as if he were detached from his body, observing as if he weren't actually there. That this wasn't happening to him. 

He slid out from Hermes' limp hand and scooped his slacks off the floor. Hermes had a balcony that showed off a fantastic view from his top floor apartment. Like he was flying over the lights, above it all. Charon opened the sliding door, stepped out into the chill of the night air, and lit a cigarette. He leaned against the railing and watched what few cars cut through winding streets at that early hour. He breathed in deep, tasting tobacco and nicotine, and tried to mull through the thoughts in his mind. 

Charon was removed from the world. A separate entity that lived on fringes. Years of isolation and solitude made him invisible, despite the space he took up. People had become nothing more than bodies. 

Hermes had manifested as his own being. Fully formed from the smog that surrounded Charon, digging in like a virus, forcing Charon to see. 

Charon didn't know if he could have the life Hermes promised. He didn't know how. He didn't know if there was space for another to slot into Charon's side, into his world. He didn't know if he was capable, if he could be what Hermes expected of him. 

He didn't know if he deserved it. 

Charon took a long drag from his cigarette, holding it out to observe the way it burned. Smoke seeped between his teeth, the burn in his lungs grounding him back to the balcony. 

Questions swirled in Charon's head and he decided they were best answered in the morning. He didn't know what the sunrise would bring and chose not to have expectations. Let Hermes have those and Charon would follow. 

Charon extinguished his cigarette and flicked it to the floor. 

Hermes was curled up in the center of his little bed, dominating it despite his tiny frame. Charon lifted the corner of the blanket and crawled back into place. Hermes practically crawled into Charon, wrapping his arms tight around him. 

"I thought you left," Hermes murmured against his chest. 

<never> Charon said. 

Hermes hummed pleasantly and Charon could hear that perpetual smile. Soon after came the tell tale heavy breaths of deep sleep. 

Charon wrapped his arms around Hermes and curled his legs so that he fit in the bed. Hermes was a perfect fit in his arms, the two of them slotting together like they belonged. 

Charon didn't know if he deserved Hermes. 

But he really hoped so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have. . . so many emotions ;A; 
> 
> [if you're looking for something spicy you can read the fade to black scene here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456280)
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	4. Panic - Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermes learns something about Charon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: panic attack

The open field had been transformed. What had once been a spit of grass sandwiched between town hall and a railroad station has become a colorful confectionery feast for the eyes. Tents had been erected in neat rows, dominating the space and denying any sort of meandering foot traffic. An array of art, jewelry, food, books, and all other apartments of innovation lay under their shaded embrace. Kind vendors with eager eyes and an answer on their lips watched as patrons ebbed and flowed around their wares. The day was perfect, sun shining between puffy clouds and under the interment trees, just a shade to hot, enough to trickle sweat down unsuspecting skin. 

Hermes drained the last of his lemonade, sucking up more air than liquid in a noisy echo, and leaned a little too close to a large mat painting. He wanted to see the way the acrylic had been layered on to the canvas so thick that it gave the image texture. The artist nervously watched from her till, hands behind her back, eyes darting to the sweating cup in Hermes' hands. He looked side long to her.

"This is real good stuff," he said, pointing and almost touching the painting. "How much are you asking for it?" 

"That one is going for 1,050," she said, pointing to the little name card. 

Hermes whistled and stood upright. He inspected the depiction of. . . a horse? Yeah it looked like a horse. It was good whatever it was, Hermes had to admit that. He cocked his head to the side. 

"Mmmm I dunno," he said. "What do you think, boss?" 

Hermes looked over his shoulder to the man that stood just outside the tents. They had learned early on that Charon couldn't quite fit comfortably under the tents and had to duck if he didn't want to scrape his hat on the tarp. He was hidden in the shadow under the brim and behind tinted purple sunglasses. His face was turned, staring vacantly over the crowd, distracted from whatever Hermes had to say. 

Hermes gave a sharp whistle and Charon jerked his head to attention, jolting like a myoclonic jerk. 

"Painting?" Hermes asked. "Do you like it?" 

Charon stared at Hermes before slowly looking at the. . . maybe it was a bear. He shrugged. 

"Hmm," Hermes pondered, looking over his silent companion. He smiled at the artist. "Maybe next time then!" 

She looked more relieved to have him out of her tent. 

Hermes took Charon by the arm and all but skipped away. 

The craft fair had been coming to the little park for years and Hermes thought it was worth the drive a couple of towns over. He'd been exploring it for a while on his own and knew it would be prime date material for his still fairly young relationship. 

He wanted this to work. He wanted what he had with Charon to last. They were coming up on the three month mark, the dreaded period where the honeymoon phase tended to fizzle. Where the spark transformed from exciting and new into complacency.

Where do many other relationships had ended before. 

The shine of a new person tended to blind Hermes and it took time before he could see the warts, the flaws, the mistakes. Or worse, they saw them in him. 

Charon had come into his life, warts and all, wearing everything he was at face value, heart on his sleeve. He looked at Hermes like he walked on water, like there was nothing greater in the world. 

Hermes quietly prayed that when Charon found his flaws, he would find them compatible, acceptable. That he would stay. 

Hermes really wanted this to work. 

They walked arm in arm through the congested aisle between booths, headed towards the heart of the fair where a live band played. The crowd was far too packed for Charon and Hermes to walk side by side, the day too hot for Hermes to be pressed up against him as he was, but Hermes loved touching the man and nothing was going to stop him from doing so. 

He gravitated towards a display of handcrafted metalwork necklaces, silver and bronze catching in the sun. He plucked a pendant off its velvet bed and held it up for Charon to see. 

Charon was exactly where Hermes had left him. Still as a statue, arms limp at his sides, like a doll left behind. 

Hermes dropped the pendant, not caring if it was back in place, and crossed the crowd back to where Charon was. 

"Hey, you doing alright there, big man?" Hermes asked, dropping the pet name to bring some brevity. 

It was slow to come, but eventually Hermes got a nod from Charon. 

Hermes wanted to believe him, but from the stiffness in his shoulders and the way the muscles in his neck clenched, Hermes had a sneaking suspicion that Charon was not okay. 

"How about we get some air, yeah?" Hermes asked, taking Charon by the arm again. "We can sit in the shade, listen to the band, get some popcorn." 

Charon didn't nod again. Behind tinted glasses, Hermes could see his unfocused eyes staring at the ground. Like he had been removed from the world. 

"Come on then," Hermes said, practically dragging Charon down the vein. 

Bodies swam past them and the tents tapered as they neared the center. The entrance to the particular aisle growing smaller and smaller A woman passed by, brushing up against Charon, and he flinched closer against Hermes. His entire body coiled, going taut and tight. The muscles of his arm clenched and Hermes could see the same treatment cascade over his body. 

"Charon?" 

His hands were trembling. He was breathing heavy through his nose. His eyes were slammed shut, closed so tight it looked painful. Slowly, he reached a shaking hand to his head and pulled his hat down over his face. A seething whistling whine came muffled from behind it. 

Without a word, Hermes pulled Charon flush against his body and marched him off the path. Decorum be damned, he walked onto the grass, between the tents, and out of reach of the crowds. Charon stumbled to keep up, still blinded by the comfort of his hat and breathing his own air. Hermes didn't stop until they reached the outskirts of the park, away from the crowds and the noise, until the band sounded practically distant. He found a proud large oak, older than the town itself, and guided Charon to the distant side of it, putting the trunk between him and the fair. 

Hermes guided Charon's back against the tree and slowly lowered the both of them to the ground. His long legs folded up in gangly arches, his heels dug into the dirt. He pressed his hat tighter against his face, fingers clung the fabric. 

Hermes watched with anxious anticipation for Charon to come out of hiding, but his breathing picked up, his fingers dug into his face, his body looked like it was locking up. 

Hermes was slow. He was careful. He was gentle as he touched his fingers to Charon’s own. The pressure was so very slight, but when Hermes guided Charon’s hands from his face, Charon followed. 

His eyes were still closed, head bowed, face hidden behind his hair. Hermes didn’t recognize it on the man, but he knew shame when he saw it. 

He took Charon by the hands, curling his fingers into the natural cups they made. Charon’s hat fell to the dirt and he clung to Hermes like a buoy in a storm. His fingers squeezing tight until it hurt, but Hermes kept his focus on Charon. 

“Charon,” Hermes said delicately. “Whats going on?” 

Charon let go of one hand and tried to sign, but his fingers shook too much. His fingers flexed and trembled, moving of their own accord. Signals from his brain to try to communicate simply weren’t going through. 

Hermes gently touched Charon’s chin, nothing more, nothing less, and pale eyes finally opened. From the way Charon’s head was still angled downward, they looked large and empty. 

<I’m here>, Hermes said. <I’m here.>

Charon’s eyes darted like a cornered animal, flitting from the words Hermes said to the even calm of his face. 

<No one else. I’m here.>

A long moment passed where the brass band wailed like a long forgotten radio. One room over, segregated from the rest of their home. The quiet bubble that Hermes formed around them. 

Charon finally let loose a long breath, his shoulders dropping with it, gasping for air that he had been neglecting. He bowed his head in, his gaze turning to the dirt between his feet. 

<anxious> he finally said. 

Hermes sighed, cupping Charon’s cheek again. He shuffled in closer, pressing his head against Charon’s. 

<We can go,> Hermes said, keeping his hand between them where Charon could see. 

Charon shook his head, eyes closing again. He managed to raise his hand and fumble. 

<you wanted to come>

Hermes clicked his tongue, despite himself. He moved in close, duck waddling between Charon’s legs and dominating his space, so that he was the only thing Charon could see. He tilted Charon’s chin up and waited for the sunlight to hit his eyes again. 

<I wanted to spend the day with you>, Hermes said. <Being with you is what’s important.>

“You’re important,” Hermes said. 

The words came tumbling out, creating cuts across Hermes’ body, leaving himself vulnerable, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to care. All the frets and worries Hermes had about Charon truly seeing him and finding him lacking washed away, in favor for Charon. For helping Charon. For pulling him from the recesses of his own mind to a place where he was safe. 

For Hermes to be that safe place. 

Charon breathed again, slower and calmer. His eyes went soft, staring into Hermes. The way he did during those quiet moments late at night when he thought Hermes was sleeping. 

Hermes crawled to Charon’s side, sitting himself next to the big man and the tree. He settled in place and gently urged Charon’s head to his shoulder. Still holding fast to his hand. 

“We can sit here as long as you need,” Hermes said quietly and looked out over the train tracks. 

Charon held still for a long time, his breathing slowing down, until Hermes thought he might have fallen asleep. After a while, Charon rose to his feet, taking Hermes with him. 

In the end they had a quiet lunch in Charon’s car, just the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're just. . . soul mates 💕
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	5. Shut Up - Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon and Hermes have a fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is sprawling out of control. 
> 
> If you're reading this in order, good on you, I wrote this chp after the two chapters after this. This is bonkers. I can't even any more.

**"SHUT UP!"**

Remnants of the foreign sound rang like white noise. A deep bellows off a soundless voice, released from its trap with a ferocity that shook the walls. It trembled the floor, but Hermes couldn't tell if the shake was from his own legs. 

He had forgotten how big Charon actually was. Standing in front of Hermes, shoulders hunched in terrifying rage, face skewed and distorted into a disgusted sneer that was reserved for just Hermes. Hands up and coiled like claws in the air, poised and aimed with an effective strength that threatened violence. He was the same man that Hermes knew, that he saw on a day to day basis for the past year, but in that moment he was a stranger. 

Hermes’ heart pounded like a timpani, ratting his ribcage and choking up his throat. An animalistic reaction that froze solid in place, afraid if he moved the creature before him might attack. 

It never came. 

Charon’s mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes wide with a threat and deep flowing anger. He breathed out long and slow and the sound of it was almost as loud as his shout. Seething with rage and coiled with temper. 

A deadly moment split between them where Hermes heard the command over and over and over again and did nothing but obeyed. Staying silent, staying quiet, staying shut up. Until finally Charon turned. He scooped up his boots and ripped his keys from the hook. He swung the door open wide and stomped away in just his socks, boots still in hand. 

The door slammed hard behind him, almost as loud as his shout. 

Only when he was alone did Hermes remember to breathe. A shaking weak thing, feeble and strange. His legs morphed into jelly, becoming useless and no long able to hold his body upright. He stumbled backwards until his knees hit a kitchen chair and he flopped back onto it. His hands trembled and his arms were boneless and limp at his sides. 

He was scared. Charon had scared him. But he wasn’t sure from what. 

He had yelled at Hermes. He had opened his mouth, used his voice, to tell Hermes to shut up. 

Memories flooded Hermes’ near blank mind. Of his step mother telling him that he talked too much. Of his father telling him to sit still and be quiet. His siblings telling him to shut up. Dio clamping a hand over his mouth to make it stop. Friends who yelled at him when he went on for too long. Teachers who had handed out detention for interrupting. Clients who had slammed the door in his face. 

Hermes knew. He knew he was a talker. He knew he had a tendency to go off. He had made adjustments to his own behavior, shifted and was careful with the people he was around. 

He had gotten comfortable with Charon. Too familiar. He had split himself open and let the rawest parts fall out and asking Charon if that was acceptable.

He had offered. He had given Charon the option to quiet him when the big man said so little. 

Charon had said no. Charon had told him to talk. Charon had told Hermes he liked it, liked the sound of his voice, like the spaces he filled up. 

Hermes had gotten too comfortable. 

He had yelled and yelled and dominated in the horrid little way he always did. Years of tamping it back had long since been forgotten and taken for granted in their still young, too long relationship. Talking over Charon, taking advantage of his muteness, watching his hands fumble as he tried to keep up with a slower language. 

Until he beat Hermes down in the most effective way possible. A hammer of a voice that Hermes had never encountered before. 

It had rocked him to his core. 

Hermes didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at the door, half hoping that it would creak open and the curled in giant that he knew would come slinking back in with a soft smile. His eyes lit up the way they always did when they caught sight of Hermes. 

It didn’t happen. 

An acidic thought formed in Hermes’ mind: Charon wasn’t not coming back. He would never come back. That monstrous hatred that he wore would be the last thing Hermes ever saw of him. 

A pained hiccup raked Hermes. He slapped a hand over his mouth to stop the noise, stop the sound, to shut up. 

Relationships ended. Thats just what happened with Hermes. He couldn’t hold people, couldn’t keep loved ones close. They slipped through his fingers like so much sand. Whether his own choice to shove them away, to run away from the commitment, or the discovery of just how much a nuisance he could be. 

He had waited for that moment to come with Charon. For Charon to decide Hermes was no longer worth the effort. For Charon to run away. 

It had finally come. 

Another sob smacked into Hermes the way Charon’s voice had. A rollercoaster like jolt that beat on Hermes’ back. 

He had gotten complacent, content, hopeful. That maybe this was it, maybe this was the one would stay. Time had fooled him, tricked him, that Charon cared enough for him that he could overlook all the flaws that everyone else found so easily. 

But it was done. It was over. Charon had left and Hermes was sure he would never see the man again. 

Hermes slid another hand over his mouth, holding his face tight to keep in the next sob, to block out the sound. He bent over slowly until his forehead touched his knees and he rocked back and forth. 

Charon had left. He wasn’t coming back. He took his boots and a significant piece of Hermes with him. 

Hermes stayed still and shut up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is oppressing me. 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	6. Good Advice - Skelly & Charon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skelly gives some good advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first time writing skelly and I gotta tell you I had a fun time with it.

Charon paused in front of the door, one fist raised in the air, the other shoved deep into his pocket. His lips pressed into a thin line, hesitating for what was not the first time that night. 

He wished he had hesitated sooner. Then maybe he wouldn’t be in that mess. 

Charon pounded on the door hard enough to rattle it in the frame. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders high against the cold. He hadn’t grabbed a proper jacket in his haste to leave and was soon regretting it. His breath misted in front of him and he shifted in place in an effort to feel his toes again. He had parked the hearse at the edge of the lot. He should’ve just opened the damn gate. 

There was no movement inside save for the flicker of a tv. Charon could hear it from all the way out there clear as day, grateful that there were no neighbors around. 

Charon pounded on the door again, throwing his weight into it. 

“I’m comin’ I’m comin’ keep your pants on!” Skelly bellowed from within. 

Charon took a few shuffling steps back on the pathetically small porch, careful to not step too far and get pushed off the railing-less side. Again. 

The door swung open too fast and with too much gusto, driven by the irritation of wheel being interrupted. It faded in an instant when he saw the interrupter. 

“Oh boyo its you,” Skelly said. “What’re you doin’ all the way out here, a little late for a house call.” 

<can i come in?> Charon asked. 

“Yeah yeah of course,” Skelly said, stepping aside. 

His home was small and cluttered, the way it had been when Charon first walked in and probably all the way until the old groundskeeper’s end. Papers perpetually spread across the table and dishes always in the sink. Too many knit blankets thrown over an orange couch. A food tray was roughly pushed aside, microwave tv dinner half eaten, complete with the plastic spork it came with. 

Skelly closed the door and the heat from the pellet stove instantly warmed Charon’s bones. 

The tiny man had always been old in Charon’s eyes, but at the same time didn’t seem to age. He had a magical quality about him to make Charon feel like he was 16 again, petulant and reclusive, rebelling against nothing by shoving the rest of the world away. But not in the way that made him feel small, not like Nyx did. Skelly was the same guy who said _‘you’re alright kid’_ and made Charon believe. He had been the source of safety when Charon was first figuring out his sexuality. He had been a comfort and a reassurance where it seemed nothing else was. 

And once again, Charon found himself at the old man’s doorstep. 

“What brings you all the way out here in the middle of the night anyways?” Skelly asked. 

Charon didn’t want to admit to it. But he couldn’t just awkwardly stand there saying nothing. 

<had a fight with Hermes,> Charon said, eyes on the ground. 

“Aw shit.” Without pause, Skelly shuffled to his fridge. “Shit kid, sit your ass down.” 

Charon shed his hoodie and only then did he realize he was still in his home sweats. Boots carelessly shoved on but never tied. He plonked down at the kitchen table, the same seat he took after his first panic at the Home, where he came out, where he introduced Hermes. _His_ seat. 

A beer was cracked open and placed before him. Without hesitation, Charon took a swig. Cheap and light and over carbonated, but he couldn't taste it. 

Skelly sat across from him, swatting away bills like a nuisance into the far corner, his own shitty beer thunked before him. 

"So," he said, cracking his beer. The aluminum cap flew off and plonked against the linoleum. "What'd ya fight about?" 

Charon flitted his hands up into the air before thunking his elbows hard against the wood laminate. He leaned into his hand and his hair skewed.

<i can't remember> he said. 

"Glad to see this was over somethin' important," Skelly muttered into his bottle. 

<he called me an inconsiderate asshole!> Charon clicked and sneered as he threw sharp emphasis in his hands. 

"Yeah, and what'd ya call him?" 

Charon sighed and settled back into his seat. He peeled at the label, already damp with condensation. 

<idiot> he said with regret. <stupid. jerk.>

"Any more?" 

Charon slumped back in his chair, his boots dragging across the ground. He sat the way he did when he was young and angry and knew he was being stupid. 

<i yelled at him>

Charon tapped at the front of his throat in way of explanation. It still ached from the brief but fearsome shout, bellowing loud enough to rattle glassware and bother the neighbors. Enough to shut Hermes up when Charon couldn't get a word in edgewise. 

<i yelled at him to shut up>

He could still see Hermes clear as day, eyes wide with a terror that Charon had never seen on him. Contorted and bizarre on his normally so confident boyfriend. He could still hear the way, early on in their relationship, when Hermes asked if Charon wanted him to talk less, so banal, like it was a common question. He remembered the way Hermes had curled up against him late at night and quietly, painfully, thanked Charon for letting him talk. 

That was roughly when Charon ran away. 

"Yikes," Skelly said. 

Charon nodded in agreement and shame. He went for his cigarettes and pat down empty sweat pants pockets. He didn't even have his wallet on him. Just keys and his phone. 

"Junk drawer, boyo." Skelly pointed with his bottle. 

Charon reached around him and dug through the stuffed drawer of stuff. He pricked himself on an open emergency sewing kit and an unpeeled stamp stuck to his finger. He found the half finished carton of filterless cigarettes, the kind he smoked before Hermes had urged him to at least switch to filters. The temporary zippo was easier to find. 

He lit up and blew a thin stream into the air. 

<dinner> he said after a long moment. 

"What was that?" Skelly asked. He tilted his head the way he did when listening for a reply. 

<he asked what we're doing for dinner, i said i didn't know and he could choose. this was apparently the wrong answer>

Skelly snorted. 

<i don't know how it got there but he was yelling something about how i don't participate in the relationship, whatever that means>

"Well do you?" 

Charon glared up at the old man. He took a deep swig of beer. 

<do i what?>

"Ya know, participate or whatever," Skelly said. 

<i give him everything>

Skelly huffed out one of this demeaning half cackles of his. 

"Is that participatin'?" 

Charon gave him a long deep stare and alternated to his cigarette. The laughter from the tv was almost deafening. Skelly kept his finger pointed at his young friend. He was never intimidated by Charon, not when he was a kid and certainly not then. 

"Listen boyo, I might never've been married, no woman could tame this," Skelly said.

Charon rolled his eyes. 

"But I do know what you and the shorty got is some real deal, bonafide, grade A, so sweet it's disgusting, good thing goin' on." Skelly punctuated each descriptor with a jab of his finger. "And this, this right here, is just a blip. It's cute."

Charon sneered, never appreciating belittlement. 

"The only reason why it feels so bad right now is because you've had it pretty dang good for so long," Skelly said. "And I know you're crazy about him, for _some_ reason, and you'll do anything for him. And I know yer a good listener and you need to _listen_ what he's saying." 

Charon flicked his cigarette, ash dancing on the table. Condensation trickled over his rings. 

<i should've picked dinner?>

"Bah!" Skelly waved him off. "That's one of them relationship things I ain't ever gonna understand. But you an' I both know that wasn't what the fight was about, now was it." 

Charon twisted his beer before draining the bottle of its contents. 

"Now you're gonna have to apologize, he'll probably apologize, who does it first don't matter," Skelly said. "What matters is you talk this out, you _listen,_ you change. You _participate."_

Skelly said each distinct syllable. 

"You understandin' me, boyo?" 

Charon watched the last of his cigarette fizzle towards his fingers. He nodded sullenly. 

"Don't be a neanderthal, use the damn ashtray." 

Charon found it from underneath a stack of coupon sheets that had been already clipped. It was littered with butts from Charon's last visit. He flopped back in the seat with a huff. 

"Now." Skelly slapped his knees and rose to his feet. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like, sleep on the couch if you need, but you know you can't run forever. Hell, you shouldn't. Not from this." 

Charon nodded. Still sullen, still petulant, but lighter somehow. The cluttered cloud in his mind that formed during Hermes' labyrinthian arguments had not entirely dissipated but Charon could see the other side. Breathing came easier. He leaned down and tied his laces. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. 

_Hermes: I'm sorry_

_Hermes: for yelling_

_Hermes: and calling you a cock head_

Charon didn't remember that particular sling of name calling and his brows rose. He felt the willful ire burble in his chest and he squeezed his eyes shut to tamp it back down. When it quelled, he looked up to see dark eyes, enlarged by coke bottle glasses. Skelly swirled his beer and waited. 

_Charon: im sorry too_

_Charon: i dont want you to shut up_

_Charon: i didnt mean to say that im sorry_

Charon watched with elongated anticipation as the three gray dots bounced while Hermes typed out his reply. 

_Hermes: truce?_

_Charon: yeah_

_Hermes: come home_

Charon smiled, a little laugh leaving through his nose. 

_Hermes: please_

"Looks like you ain't spendin' the night, boyo," Skelly said. 

Charon didn't mind. He'd spent time on that couch before and truth be told, he didn't want to spend another night on it. He wanted to spend the night in his own bed. 

With his boyfriend. 

_Charon: im on my way_

Charon pulled his hoodie back on. 

"Well then, get," Skelly said, pushing the oversized man out his front door. "And don't come back unless you got a replacement sixer." 

Charon waved the old man off, their relationship not a particularly tactile one nor one for sentiment. It was the closest they'd get to a thank you. The closest the really had to family. 

The big man traversed through the cemetery, blending in with the headstones at night, like he belonged. Skelly closed the door, settled back on his sunken orange couch, and dragged his tv tray back in front of him, digging his spork into a meal that had since gone cold. 

"Stupid kid, makin' me miss wheel." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things I like about this one:  
> Skelly's couch  
> the fact that he keeps cigarettes on hand just for Charon 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	7. Aftermath - Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Make up after the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't actually intending to write this one, but it was requested and just poured out of me

Hermes couldn’t sleep. Charon couldn’t either. He lay in Charon’s bed, on his side, looking into the quiet eyes of his boyfriend in the dark. They shone back, the pale grey color that had an odd way of glinting purple in darker settings. They lay there in silence, having long since said their good nights, I love yous, sweet dreams, and proceeded to not do that. They laid, side by side, just waiting for the other to go to sleep. 

Charon raised his fist and rubbed it in a circle on his chest.

<sorry> he said for not the first time that night. 

Hermes sighed, almost out of agitation, and pressed a hand to Charon’s first, lowering it back to the bed. 

“Stop apologizing,” he said quietly, afraid to break the silence of the room. “You’ve apologized enough.” 

Charon let Hermes move him, looking just as cowed and kicked as he had when he first came back. 

Charon had walked into the apartment like a den where he didn’t belong, closing the door behind him and leaning against it without looking up. It was an odd sight for Hermes and in a detached way he watched his boyfriend with a scientific fascination. The still shell shocked stun that Hermes was under from hearing his voice at such a volume still rang in his ears and left Hermes in a daze. These new sides of Charon, the anger that overflowed to face contorted in terrifying enragement, the shame and humiliation that made him coil in on himself, as if trying to be small.

Upon sight, Hermes returned to his body and crossed the room, not knowing if it was okay to do so, but wrapping his arms around Charon regardless. He had waited for the push away and had sobbed when it was returned. 

Hermes didn’t like to cry. He prided himself on not crying. 

Charon had walked out of his own apartment, leaving Hermes behind, and for a slim moment Hermes had the thought of _‘its over.’_

For the first time in Hermes’ little life, he didn’t want it to be over. He wasn’t sure if he could stand to not have Charon there. A year of having him etched into his side and all Hermes could think was losing a limb would be easier.

But Charon had come back. He had apologized and Hermes did the same. They sat at the pathetic little table, holding hands, talking in slow quiet exchanges about what had happened and what to do moving forward. The conversation was somehow worse than the fight, with riled up emotions settled down but still so painful, having to work through them to come up with some sort of conclusion. 

Promises had been made, plans had been put in place. 

Still Hermes’ chest was tied up in knots. 

“Stop apologizing,” he muttered again into Charon’s hand. 

Charon sighed, the defeat on his face relaying to Hermes. 

He was in the same position. 

He wriggled his hand out from under Hermes, awkwardly straining his arms when pinned to the bed like that. 

<i really don’t want you to shut up> he said. <that is the last thing i want>

“You’ve said this already,” Hermes said, so very tired. He wished sleep would find him. 

<i don’t want you to second guess> Charon kept going. <i don’t want you to have to question yourself>

He had been to Olympus, had seen Hermes’ family. The first time Hermes had even brought someone around to meet the folks, meet his chaotic siblings. Relationships never lasting long enough to get to that point.

It wasn’t for them though. It was for Charon. 

For him to see what he was working with, where he had come from. And Charon had seen. He had witnessed the way Hermes had clammed up, had politely kept his ramblings to himself. Years upon years of being told he was annoying, he talked too much, had ingrained that fact into his skull. It was never out of insecurity that made him check if he was annoying someone, but rather out of courtesy. He _was_ annoying, he _did_ talk too much, and it was only fair that he check. 

He had never checked with Charon. He had never felt the need. 

<please don’t stop talking> Charon said again. 

“I won’t,” Hermes said, taking hold of Charon’s hands. He wriggled closer, pressing his head to Charon’s, making sure to keep eye contact, even as his features went blurry in the dark. “I won’t. I mean, if you like boss, I could go off right now. What do you want to talk about? The weather? We could go into some real idle water cooler chit chat, some real good meaningless babble thats completely about nothing.” 

Charon breathed, sounding like a pained little laugh. The humor doing little to dispel the mood. But enough. 

Hermes moved closer still, his knees bumping against Charon’s. 

“Or we. . . or we could talk about,” Hermes said. “We could talk about. How much I love you. Because I really do boss. I’m going to keep saying it a thousand times.” 

He felt his throat starting to clog, the pressure behind his eyes, the sensations he had learned never to let take him over. That Charon some how made it all to easy to feel. 

“How I don’t want you to go,” Hermes said, quiet enough that even the silence overwhelmed it. “I don’t want this to end, Charon.” 

Charon’s large hand rested on his face, nearly encapsulating it. He ran a thumb over Hermes’ cheek where a tear had managed to make its escape. 

Hermes turned into the touch, if only to hide from any more oncoming, unwanted tears. 

“I didn’t mean to push you,” he said. “I’m sorry for pushing.” 

Charon hooked a finger under Hermes’ chin, coaxing him to look. 

<stop apologizing>

Hermes laughed, bitter and pained, but the humor doing a lot more. Charon smiled for the first time that night, soft and small in the way that Hermes adored. A small eddy of the quiet moments that Hermes could only share with Charon. For just that second, he wallowed in it, if just to feel the momentary reprieve in his heart. 

They settled again, Hermes holding Charon’s hand, rubbing at his knuckles. The rings he perpetually wore, glinting in the light from the window. Hermes bowed his head and kissed the back of his fingers. 

“I. . .” Hermes said, skirting around the subject, not wanting to start another fight, another lingering removed conversation. But it needed to come out. “I don’t want an accessory, Charon.” 

Charon sighed heavily, his body sinking into the bed, deflating into the bed. It wasn’t the defeat, it wasn’t relief, it was the open acceptance that was ready to be filled by Hermes’ words. 

Hermes licked his lips. What had come out in angry shouts, what had been skirted around in their table conversation. It felt like digging a finger into a wound, but when already elbow deep, there was nowhere left to go.

“Its odd,” Hermes said laughing, running a hand through his hair. “Having a complaint like this. My boyfriend is too nice, he gives me too much, he does everything I want. I can think of a few people who would kill to be in this situation. Like physically murder someone just to have. . .” 

Hermes was used to all Charon's expressions, most of them hidden behind a banal blank boredom. For Hermes he smiled, he scowled. For Hermes he emoted and Hermes coveted them all. 

Kicked was not one Hermes wanted to see again. 

Hermes steeled finals himself, pressing his lips together and taking a deep breath in. 

"Don't get me wrong, boss, I like that you care," Hermes said. "I like that you give. But we've been together for almost a year now and I still don't know what it is you want."

Charon’s eyes scanned just past Hermes, looking down in the pillow. They darted, looking at details in the dark, looking into the back of his mind, before looking up again. 

<you>

Hermes squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath in frustration. He placed a hand on Charon’s to lower it to the bed, counting backwards from 10, less he start up the shouting match all over again. 

“Thats. . . thats very sweet Charon,” Hermes said, opening up his eyes. “But thats. . . not what I’m looking for, boss. What did you do before we got together?” 

Charon looked away again, searched his thoughts again. As long as Hermes kept his voice level, Charon would stay the same, matching his energy. They could be quiet in bed together and steadily untie the knots in Hermes’ chest. 

<work> Charon said. <home. repeat>

Hermes let out a shuddering breath. He believed Charon. That the closed off man who hid from the world and spent all his time silently with the dead did nothing more than the bare minimum for human life. Hermes ran his tongue over his lips. 

<very little else>

“I just.” Hermes turned his face into his pillow, his voice cracking again. “I don’t want you to be this empty vessel that stays at my side, waiting to see what it is I want. I want you to have your own desires. I want you to be able to make your own choices. I want you to want things Charon.” 

Charon still seemed confused by this, held in Hermes’ hands, sinking into the well worn mattress. 

“I want to not have to make all the decisions in this relationship,” Hermes whispered and Charon looked up again to meet his eyes. “I don’t want an accessory. I want a boyfriend.” 

Charon came back to him, eyes opening wider in some form of comprehension. 

The knot coiled around and around, slippering like an ouroboros of tangled emotion. 

“But I don’t. . .” Hermes choked, losing his composure. “I don’t want you to leave.” 

Charon surged forward, wrapping his arms around Hermes, tight enough to crush. Pulling Hermes fierce to his chest where he could hide, where it was safe. Hermes clung to his shirt and let the knot slip free from his lips.

“You can. . . you don’t have to. . . as long as you stay. Please stay,” Hermes whimpered. 

Charon pressed his face into Hermes’ hair. Kissed his temple. Let him release. More apologies slipped between them, both said and not. Strained and tensed as they pressed tight up against each other. 

A resolution wasn’t found that night. The situation not something that could have been tied up into a neat bow. Plans could have been laid, but it meant nothing unless they were followed. Grievances could be made but placations ran hollow. 

Only time would tell. 

But that night, as Charon held Hermes and pushed back his hair, for the second time, Hermes heard his voice. Hushed and whispered by his ear. 

Hermes knew Charon was going nowhere. Hermes knew they would have that time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're so wonderfully soft ;A; 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	8. Apologies - thanatos & hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hypnos is in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was the first one I wrote
> 
> I just. . .really like Than in this AU so much ;A;

"I'm sorry." 

"Thanatos. . . " 

"I'm so sorry Hypnos." 

Thanatos sat at the edge of the hospital bed, hands folded between his legs and head bowed. He couldn't look up, shame pressing down on the back of his neck. A limp hand, pale from lack of sunshine, drifted into his view. It hung heavy, as if it were a struggle to keep up. Distorted and raised from the IV stuck in the back. 

"Please stop apologizing Thanatos. It's not your fault. Really." 

Thanatos managed to look up, his head weighed down by the same lifeless pressure that pressed down on that hand. An infectious lethargy, but coursed with guilt. 

The same placid smile shined down at him, soft drooping eyes lined with dark circles, more alert than they had been in days. A large bruise was beginning to yellow just under his hairline, evidence of where he had hit it. 

Hypnos had fallen. He had been in his bed for days and Thanatos had been fed up. He had tried to be sympathetic, but there was only so long that he was going to tolerate Hypnos' lackadaisical bad habits. There was only so many dirty plates and dirty clothes and garbage hoarded in his brother's room he was willing to tolerate. Thanatos had insisted that Hypnos get up, get out, get some fresh air. That if he just moved then maybe he'd work the stiffness out, maybe he'd gain some energy. 

Hypnos had fallen down the stairs. 

A thundering clatter that built and ended in a sickening thud. His brother was a contorted heap at the base of the stairs, a pile of limbs, and he hadn't been moving. 

It had been the longest seconds of Thanatos' life. A rigor held him in place as he waited for, begged for Hypnos to laugh, to move, to say 'oops'. 

But Hypnos hadn't moved. 

Hypnos was sick. 

Seeing where Hypnos had hit his head, bruised his arm, leg in a cast, Thanatos couldn't help but feel the blame. 

Hypnos tapped pathetically at the air, insistent. Even though he didn't deserve it, Thanatos took his hand. 

"It's not your fault," Hypnos said. "Everything is okie dokie, okay?" 

"It's not, Hypnos," Thanatos said. 

Hypnos' smile quivered and his face fell in pity. He looked down at their hands, squeezing pathetically. They shifted and danced, cold from the saline drip and poor circulation. 

"Well then," Hypnos said. He pat the back of Thanatos' hand out of sympathy. "Guess you'll just have to get used to being wrong." 

Thanatos laughed, bitter but unavoidable. It did bring the sunshine smile back to Hypnos' face. He tapped a tune against Thanatos' hand. Thanatos shook his head at the incredulity of his hopelessly optimistic brother. Despite the dirge and dredge that weighed him down, Hypnos always had a smile and a kind word. Thanatos laughed again. 

"There you see?" Hypnos said, leaning down in an effort to meet his eyes. "It'll be okay. I promise." 

Hunched over and still defeated, Thanatos finally returned his smile. It hurt to do so. He knew every time he closed his eyes he'd see the crumpled heap of Hypnos that had chilled his blood to frozen. He knew he needed to make it up to Hypnos, the way he has yelled at him, diminished him, forced him out of bed. 

He also knew Hypnos would never accept that. 

"I. Promise," Hypnos said, tapping his hand with each word. 

Thanatos wouldn't make it up to Hypnos. Instead, he'd be his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the boys are gonna be alright :') 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	9. Brothers - Charon & Thanatos & Hypnos, Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon goes to the hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst :') Some hurt/comfort

Charon froze at the door. His hand hovered over the handle, the brass reflecting his fingers, distorted and elongated and alien. Stock still, as if it were a picture, an illustration. Removed from reality. If it were, then it would explain the strangeness of what he was looking at. 

But the words were real. 

"Boss?" 

Charon took a step back from the door, staring down at his phone, brow furrowed and mouth hanging open. He turned in place, trying to find answers to explain this confusion. 

"What is it?" 

Charon's neck strained as he looked up slowly. Hermes stood in his kitchen, dressed in his uniform for the day sans sneakers. The morning light shining blindingly through the kitchen window gave him a halo effect, a short shadow holding a can of red bull, fingers primed to open it. Even with the light, Charon could still see wide dark eyes asking silent curious questions. 

Charon didn't have the answers to them. 

He looked back at his phone and read the text again, the first thing he saw when he turned it on. 

_'Hypnos has had an accident. He fell down the stairs. Broken leg and concussion. Won't be in the office today.'_

"Hey, what's going on?" Hermes asked, crossing the room and leaving his can on the counter. "Let me see." 

It was easy for Hermes to steal Charon's phone from his loose grip, still stunned, more by the flippant tone of the text than the actual content. Hermes' mouth pressed into a thin line as he scanned the words, his eyes jumping as they flitted across the sentences. 

"Hypnos. . .," he said slowly, trying the name out. "Your brother right?" 

Charon nodded numbly. He looked around for what to do next. Nyx said she wouldn't be into work, so did that mean Charon had to be there? Did he just go to work? He wasn't close with his brothers, hell the whole rest of his family for that matter. Was he supposed to go to the hospital? Would be even be welcome there? 

Scenarios and questions kept Charon in place, frozen with indecision. 

Warm hands framed his face and turned his head, drawing his attention to the man that had so thoroughly engrained himself to every facet of Charon's life. As he usually did, he saw through Charon's silence to the root of the matter. 

"Here's what we're gonna do," Hermes told Charon. "We're gonna get in your big dumb boat of a car and I'm going to drive you down to the hospital. I know you don't like me behind the wheel boss, but I don't think you should be driving now, you get it. When we get there, you're going to go inside and sit by your brother's side and hold his hand until he's better. Okay?" 

Hermes had a knack for taking the impossible and making it work. For unscrambling tangles into neat little lines. 

Charon nodded in his hands. 

"Alright," Hermes said, taking Charon's keys from him. "Let's go big guy." 

Hermes was uncharacteristically silent the whole way to the hospital. He normally filled up spaces that Charon left wide open, but Charon was so far deep in his own mind that he wasn't sure he'd be able to register anything Hermes said anyways. The world slid by outside his window and Charon saw nothing. 

He worked with Nyx every day, but when was the last time he actually saw her? When was the last time he saw Hypnos? It seemed every rare occurrence Charon went back to the house he grew up in, his younger brother was asleep. 

Did he belong at their side anymore? Would he be welcome? 

Hermes pulled the hearse up to the entrance of the hospital, idling in a zone specified for ambulances. Charon unbuckled and went to climb out, but Hermes caught him by the wrist. 

"I'm not going in with you," he said.

Charon's blood went cold. His eyes widened, silently pleading for the constant support in his life to stay by his side. 

Hermes tugged him back into the car and leaned over the arm rest. 

"I don't think it'll be the right time to meet the family," he said with a smile. "But text me if you need anything and I'll be here. Quick as a flash. Promise." 

He rested a slow kiss against Charon's lips and it was enough reassurance. 

Charon moved as if in a dream, his legs floating and detached from his body. He asked for Hypnos Chthonic with a voice scratchy and rasping from lack of use. Explaining that he was family felt wrong, but the receptionist gave him direction anyways. 

The hospital was filled with people; nurses, patients, visitors waiting in chairs, but to Charon the space was liminal and closed off from the world. Contained in a sub space that was an endless hallway leading to a room where his brother lay broken. 

Nyx was no where to be seen. There was no authority for Charon to explain himself. He stepped into the room. 

Hypnos lay in a hospital bed, fast asleep. He was small, propped by the angle of the bed, head nestled against a standard issue pillow. The blanket over his body only came up to his chest, his arms bare on either side of him. A leg in a pristine white cast poked out of the side. A cannula accessorised across his face and an IV was stuck into the back of his hand. Each breath, deep with sleep, raised a frail chest with a quiet snore. 

Thanatos sat in the chair at Hypnos' beside, holding a limp hand between both his own. He was hunched over, as if in prayer, and looked up when Charon stepped in. His eyes were wide and vacant, an odd look on his normally so serious brother. 

"Charon," Thanatos said and his voice cracked. 

And just like that, Charon was small again. The world too large, everything just out of reach. Twin babes were brought home and introduced to Charon, both of them miniscule and fragile, asleep in their own innocent dreams, and Charon knew how special they were immediately. 

Once again, they were before him. 

"Charon I. . .," Thanatos said. He licked his lips, looking at the ground, and Charon recognized the shame. "Hypnos he. He fell. He fell down the stairs and he. He didn't get back up." 

What could've been mistaken for a smile shook across Thanatos' face, but Charon saw it for what it was. 

He was holding back tears.

Charon crossed the room.

"He didn't get up," Thanatos continued to explain, the words spilling out of him as if he finally had someone to spill them onto. "He had been sleeping for so long and I thought. I thought if he just got up he'd. He'd feel better. But he." 

Charon didn't know if it was his place. He didn't know if he should. He still questioned if he should even be there. 

But Thanatos was special, as Hypnos was special. 

And Charon placed a hand on Thanatos' head. 

Thanatos hiccuped. He slapped a hand over his mouth. Wet filmed over his eyes and tears pricked at the corners. He stared wide eyed at the floor, still fighting against the flood.

"It's my fault," he said, muffled by his hand. "It's my fault he's. . ."

Charon scooped his brother up to his feet and held him close to his chest. He wrapped his arms tight around Thanatos, protecting him from the world. Thanatos covered his mouth with both hands, eyes squeezed shut and face pressed into Charon's chest. 

"It's my fault," he said, small and broken. 

Charon shook his head. He held his little brother tighter and rested his cheek on Thanatos' hair, shaking his head once more. 

He hadn't seen Thanatos since he went to college. He hadn't spoken to him in well over a year. But he knew. In the base of his core he knew. 

Thanatos would never do anything to hurt Hypnos. 

Thanatos' shoulders shuddered. His body jolted in Charon's arms. One more hiccup and the dam broke. He gripped Charon's shirt between tight fists and opened his mouth wide to not breathe. His face contorted, hidden behind the safety of Charon's arms. Quiet sniffles and heavy gasping breaths were the only sounds that came from him. Tears stained Charon's shirt but it didn't matter. 

He let Thanatos cry. 

_____

Sometime past midnight Hypnos woke up. Nyx still had not returned to the room and Charon doubted she would show. He'd found a junky paperback novel in the waiting room, some sleazy paint by numbers murder mystery. He was half way through when his brother roused. 

Hypnos' head lolled bonelessly and his eyes opened one at a time, fluttering as they struggled against either the drugs or his disposition. His condition. 

When he saw Charon, he smiled, wide and lazy.

"Charon," he said, almost like a song. 

Charon closed the book and held a finger to his lips. He pointed to the chair next to him where Thanatos sat. He had fallen asleep, leaning against one fist, his cheek smashed against his face and his mouth hanging open.

"Oh," Hypnos whispered and held up a finger to his own mouth, sealing their promise. 

Charon put the book down on the cold windowsill and walked to Hypnos' bed side. He still wore the same placid smile he always did, content and dimpled. As if nothing were wrong. 

Charon wanted to ask if he was okay, but the question seemed so feeble when the answer was so obvious. 

"It's good to see you," Hypnos whispered. "How've you been?" 

Charon knew the answer.

As he had Thanatos, Charon wrapped his arms around his twin. The hug was awkward, with Charon half bent over, pulling Hypnos to the guard rail at the side of the bed. He felt so small in Charon's arms, so slight. A feather light creature that might float away if he ever let go. He tightened his hold to prevent that from happening. 

Hypnos stilled in his arms, going stiff. Slowly, he raised his hands to return the hug and gently placed them on Charon's back. Slowly, his fingers curled, taking handfuls of Charon's shirt into tight fists. Slowly, he pressed his face into Charon. 

"Thank you Charon," Hypnos said in a voice so small it could barely be heard under the air conditioning. 

Charon held tight to his brother and didn't let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Momo's art can be found here](https://twitter.com/MomoSweetPeach/status/1359388724811939841?s=20)
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	10. Late at Night - Hypnos & Thanatos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos has a nightmare.

Hypnos wasn't moving. 

A mangled heap of limbs that laid face first on the floor. Head bent back awkwardly from impact. The stain of red seeping on the hardwood. Legs angled on steps as if they meant to go back up them, bending in directions they ought not to go. 

A mass of parts that in some shape may have made up a body at one point, but as they lay were nothing more than puzzle pieces poured out of the box. 

"Hypnos," Thanatos said in a voice that wasn't his. "Get up. This isn't funny." 

The pile didn't move. It didn't flinch. A still life that Thanatos could see all angles of. 

It looked like Hypnos. A mop of curly white hair, ungroomed and untamed. Oversized baggy clothes. Long bony fingers that reached up into the air. Gangly limbs that splayed like bare branches in winter, crooked like still frame lightning bolts etched in sand. 

It looked like Hypnos, but the disconnect was too great. This couldn't be Hypnos. 

It was a monster. 

"Hypnos?" Thanatos' voice cracked as it had at the time, hysteria spoiling his tenor. 

The red smeared across the floor, creating a new bright lacquer, the brilliant neon of fresh blood. The winding staircase curled up forever into the shadows darkness, the recesses of the mansion that had contained them for so long. Staring at their continuous length and knowing that it had been such a long way to fall. That the runner down the center had done nothing to soften the impact. The continuous rumble and percussive thuds echoed like a song Thanatos couldn't forget. 

"Hypnos please!" 

The voice was not his. It was not his words. He screamed them but no one could hear. 

The mass rattled. It twisted and turned, bones creaking and cracking as the head lifted to fold over. The torso rotated to reveal jutting ribs, cracked open at the sternum and splayed open for inspection. Eyes open and pale, unblinking as they stared just past Thanatos. 

A corpse at the base of the stairs. 

Hypnos, not Hypnos, the corpse of Hypnos, opened his jaw and pieces of him dribbled out onto the floor. 

Thanatos sucked in a deep gasp of air and shot up in bed. He grabbed the air, looking for something to hold onto. His stomach dropped and his brain fooled him into thinking he was falling. 

In the dark of his dorm, it took a moment for him to remember the waking world. 

Thanatos grabbed his blankets. He panted like a marathoner trying to catch his breath. A thin sheet of cold sweat filmed over his skin. 

A dream. Another nightmare. That's all. 

Trying to gain control of his breathing, he took a deep breath in and leaned against his knees. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and pressed his brow against the base of his palm. 

_ Just another nightmare.  _

Thanatos had been back at school for just over a week, but it seemed like he'd had a bad dream every night. Months of having been at his brother's side, taking care of Hypnos, having nothing other to do than care take, had skewed Thanatos' perceptions. He couldn't quite remember how to be a student anymore and it was proving difficult to reacclimate. 

For the past 3 months his life had been structured around his brother. A to-do list of tasks that kept Thanatos occupied. Setting up therapy, working through medications, arranging so that he and Charon were Hypnos' medical proxies, getting the house, making it suitable, falling into the routine of Hypnos' day to day needs. 

It was a good thing that Hypnos was getting better, that his life was set up that he could function without constant supervision. It was good that Thanatos wasn't kept occupied with Hypnos' every need. It was good that Thanatos could go back to school.

It didn't stop the nightmares. 

When he was at home and he woke in the middle of the night, once again dreaming about the tangled mess he had turned his brother into, he could get up out of bed. He could walk down the hall, press his ear against the door, listen to his twin's snores. He could peek his head in to see his brother fast asleep. Or worse, the rare nights when Hypnos was awake, smiling in that perfect wan way of his that shared the sentiment that Thanatos was being overbearing again. 

Thanatos just needed to be reassured his twin was alive. His twin was fine. 

Thanatos went for his phone. Swiping past the background picture of him and Hypnos, laughing over something he couldn't remember. It was somewhere in the middle of the night, the respectable time for sleep. He pulled up his call app and his thumb hovered over Hypnos' name. 

Charon and Hypnos urged Thanatos to finish his degree. It was only two more semesters and a handful of credits. They wanted him to move on with his life. 

Thanatos knew it was more than just that. 

This was Hypnos' disease. His problem. His life. By Thanatos having the constant need to make sure Hypnos was safe, alive, well, by trying to make it up to him, Thanatos knew he was making it about him. He was perverting Hypnos' handicap to be all about his problems. 

Thanatos put his phone down and took a deep breath. 

He had to reorient himself. Correct his course. He had to get back on the tracks he had made for himself originally, continue on with his life, and prioritize Hypnos' needs in whatever way possible. 

Which meant his over attentive twin needed to not be breathing down his neck. 

Thanatos took in one last deep breath and laid back down, curling on his side, repeating to himself that he could always call Hypnos in the morning. 

He would pick up then.

_____ 

Hypnos was wide awake. 

One of the many downsides of CFS was the way it plagued his sleep schedule. Some days it was hard to wake up with the alarms and Hypnos had been reassured that on those days he could rest for as much as his body needed. The problem with that was he slept the day away and woke up at 2 in the morning, different pains from too much time in bed. 

He loved the single level house he and his brothers had moved into. He loved the big room he had, split off with his work desk and light table on the other side. His en suite bathroom and his army of stuffed animals. He looked the kitchen that was big enough for his chair and the deck Charon smoked out on. He liked the big sunny living room and the long dark hall filled with bedrooms. He liked the little slope out the front door and the big green lawn with the single old tree. 

He loved that house. 

But at night it was quiet. It creaked as it settled, as wind blew over the new roof. A still silence filled it's quarters and even if Hypnos were the only one there, he would be afraid to break it. 

He had half a mind to get up and continue the illumination of the week, but his body still ached. The joints still complained. His back warned that if he lay still much longer there would be hell to pay. That if he hunched over his desk it would be worse.

It was a no win situation. 

Hypnos half wished Thanatos were there. That he'd quietly turn the handle so the latch wouldn't click when he opened the door. That just his head would poke in, to see if Hypnos needed anything. At 2 in the morning. 

Hypnos liked having his privacy back and agency in his day to day choices. 

But there was a silence. 

Hypnos picked up his phone and stared at the screen. A background of him and Thanatos. Hypnos had hugged him and Than wore a rare smile. The kind where his dimples came out. 

He pulled up the texts. Thanatos would be asleep at that hour, a responsible young man getting his rest for a full day of classes. 

One text wouldn't wake him. 

_ Hypnos: hope you're having a good time :)  _

Hypnos smiled. Thinking of Than, living his life, doing what he was doing before the accident, made Hypnos happy. Even if the smile was pricked with a heat behind his eyes. 

He could be happy and sad at the same time. That was possible. 

One more text wouldn't hurt. 

_ Hypnos: I miss you _

Hypnos shut off his phone and set it aside. He rolled over into his side and nestled into his mountain of stuffed animals. He closed his eyes and felt something smooth out in his chest. A contentment that maybe if he went to sleep, he could get back on track. 

Hypnos nuzzled in closer and closed his eyes, a smile on his lips. 

_ Than: I miss you too _

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Than texted back at 2 in the morning, the dweeb
> 
> [Momo's art can be found here](https://twitter.com/MomoSweetPeach/status/1360607223328735241?s=20)
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	11. Can We Talk - Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermes needs to tell Charon something important

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This right here starts a little thread of a story that pops back up later I WONDER WHAT IT COULD BE

Hermes jangled as he walked. A clanging weight that clinked just beneath his collar. He practically skipped up to the door way of the cozy little one floor and didn't bother to knock before entering. 

Lunch break at the Chthonic house was not always a guarantee. Some days were more demanding than others. A rush of orders had come in or it was a three body day. Perhaps there were back to back clients or a hastily scheduled funeral. Whatever it might be, the mortician made a point to come back home for lunch. 

Hermes visited to join his significant other and his kin and crept inside the house. Charon stood at the kitchen counter, back to the door, and was in the process of steadily chopping something up. Hand placed squarely on his chest to silence the clink of metal, Hermes all but tiptoed to the door at the end of the hall. 

Charon's room had become as familiar to Hermes as his own apartment. Painted and decorated dark, complete with light blocking curtains, and a small collection of docs by the door, Charon practically lived in a cave. Still, the light caught from the jewelry displays on his dresser. 

Rings sat in a handsome box, lined with plush velvet, each with their own unique space. There were more vacancies in the box as of late and it looked almost completely sold out. Hermes plucked one unassuming band from its abode and slipped it into his pocket. Carefully shutting the door behind him so it would not do much as click, Hermes made his way back to the main room. 

Not bothering with sneaking, Hermes practically pounced and wrapped his arms around Charon, standing on tiptoe to wrap his hands over Charon's eyes. 

"Boo," he said. 

Not giving Hermes the gratitude of flinching, Charon looked over his shoulder. Hermes grinned up at him. 

"Hey boss," he said. "Just dropping by to surprise you." 

Charon, smooth as always, took a step from the counter with plate in hand. A neatly built sandwich sat firmly in the center and a handful of chips leaned against it's bready side. Two more identical plates sat on the counter and if Hermes had to guess, one was for Charon and the other for Hypnos. Hermes swiped  _ his _ sandwich from Charon's hand. 

"Spoilsport," he said.

A plonked himself down at the table, which turned out to be the wrong move as he rang out like sleigh bells. Hermes attempted to feign nonchalance and took a bite of his sandwich, but he could feel the red in his face and strain of a smile at the corners of his lips. 

The chair next to him groaned against the ground as Charon pulled it out of place. His place gently clicked against the table, neat and a knowing punctuation. 

Charon sat down, his eyes firmly on Hermes. He folded his hands, businesslike and no nonsense. They were strikingly bare, having only two rings where there had once been at least ten. 

Without any warning, he smoothly slid his fingers into the collar of Hermes' shirt and hooked under the ball chain necklace that hid underneath. Stolen rings that Hermes had been steadily collecting over the course of the week danced against one another and sang like bells. Hermes didn't even try to look sheepish. He just took another bite. 

Sighing in resignation, Charon took the chain in both hands and slipped it over Hermes' head, forcing him to bow his chin. The chain flipped at the cartilage of Hermes' ears, but otherwise came off cleanly. Charon unhooked the connector and took the rings off one by one, depositing them at their rightful places, kissing his knuckles. 

"Took you long enough," Hermes teased. "Thought I'd have to start moving on to necklaces before you noticed. Would've gone so far as stealing that ridiculous hat, then I would've moved onto the shirts." 

<you already steal my shirts> Charon said. 

"That's different." Hermes waved him off and took another bite. 

<if you wanted a ring from me, we can talk>

Hermes nearly choked on his sandwich. He stared in a wide eyed shock at Charon, smug to have gotten one up on Hermes and digging into his own lunch. Hermes swallowed and a sharp ridge of a chip lodged in his throat. 

"Yeah," he tried to laugh it off but it came out too clipped. "Yeah sure." 

Hermes took another bite, tasting nothing, and looked out the window. 

____

Movie night had become an institution. 

Living together was one thing, but Charon had been fostering his relationship with his brothers, so long estranged. Reconnecting and rediscovering the people his brothers had become. 

Hermes encouraged it. He’s not sure of the place Charon would have been in had he not gone to the hospital that day and he liked the man Charon was becoming. 

So. Movie night with Hypnos. 

Once a week they splayed out on the couches, choosing the movies round robin one by one. If Hermes was over then all horror was instantly vetoed, long since learning that the share taste between the Chthonics went directly against his own. It was Hypnos’ time to pick and he had dredged up a rom com. Hermes wouldn’t have chosen it for himself, but it was better than whatever flesh eating, gore filled, zombie flick that Hypnos had decided on that first movie night. 

The couple kissed in the sunset, going off to their unrealistic happily ever after. The story ended with marriage and babies in an eye rolling swell of music and half assed denouement. 

Hermes could expect Hypnos to ass out during those movies, but he seemed fully engaged, smiling contentedly as the credits rolled. Charon, on the other hand, had been in the throes of suffering a long week. He had fallen asleep, his head back on the couch, arm protectively wrapped around Hermes. Steady even breaths, deep and quiet, signalling just how far he had fallen into REM. 

Leaving it up to Hermes to button up, he leaned forward, picking up the remote off the coffee table. With a single click, the living room was draped in darkness. 

Hermes rested back into Charon’s hold, into the space where he fit under Charon’s arm. Right where he belonged. On instinct, deep in his dreams, Charon’s hand curled around his shoulder. 

The suspicious quiet blinked Hermes’ eyes to look at the younger brother. Seated off to the side in the wide armchair, Hypnos was staring. He had a tendency not to blink, looking eerily into the distance, leaning forward. With his long neck craned and his singular smiling focus, he took on an appearance that was more horrifying than any movie could. 

Hermes waited for the inevitable  _ weird _ to come popping out of his mouth. 

“So when are you two getting hitched?” he asked. 

Hypnos had an awful ability to rattle people’s bones, to fluster them. It didn’t often work on Hermes, but when it did, it was effective. A simple, innocuous question that turned Hermes’ blood to ice. He stiffened, sitting up a little straighter, a rigor that claimed his limbs. The fingers on his shoulders shifted, almost soothing him, and he knew Charon was feigning sleep. 

Hermes swallowed heavily, pushing down the instant panic. 

“Nunya,” he said, trying to be joking, but it came out warbling. “Go to bed, brat.” 

“Okie dokie,” Hypnos said, shuffling to his feet with a great heave. He walked slow and stiff the short path to his room, the day and sitting still for so many hours having taken a toll on him. 

Hermes watched him go before turning to look up at the man next to him. Pale eyes that always,  _ always _ shone in the moonlight gleamed down at him. No expectations, no questions, just a moment shared between them. 

A moment that Hermes couldn’t stay in. 

“I gotta get home,” he said quietly. “Feed Chel and all that.” 

He rose to his feet, only stopping to give Charon a kiss goodbye. 

____

Hermes repeated practiced words over and over again, hoping if he said them enough times they would feel natural. He stood in front of the little house, not quite ready to knock on the door. 

“And thats why I can’t. . .,” he muttered to himself. The twist that had been living inside his chest tightened. Clenching his heart in a vice grip. 

Each word rang a bell, marching him closer and closer to a cliff's edge he wasn’t ready to stand at yet. A potential end to something that had been going so well. Hermes wanted to continue to swerve around it, to dodge it at every angle, but it was becoming inevitable. As things got more and more serious, he would need to say the words. 

“Fuck,” he whispered. 

Steeling himself and still not ready, Hermes knocked on the door. 

Weekend days guaranteed that someone would be home and that someone opened the door. Charon wore a bland look upon first opening, ready to go through the motions of awkward conversations with a solicitor, and he lit up upon seeing Hermes. Small movements that would have gone unnoticed to the uninitiated to Charon, but a well versed conversation to Hermes. 

The elation only made the knot tighten harder. 

“Hey boss,” Hermes said, broken and weak. 

Confusion settled on Charon as pieces put together. The way Hermes spoke, the way he held himself, hunched over and defeated. How he didn’t just walked into the house. 

“Can I come in?” he asked. 

Hermes had yet to ask permission to invade Charon’s space, always constantly in his bubble. Charon stepped aside, moving slow through the question he wasn’t asking, and giving Hermes the room to walk inside. Hermes shuffled in, looking around the house as if he were seeing it for the first time. He waited until the door closed before turning to Charon. 

“Where’s Hypnos?” Hermes asked. 

<sleeping> Charon said. 

“Cool,” Hermes nodded, looking at his shoes. “Cool.” 

Brows furrowed, Charon moved across the room. Before he could get close enough to touch, Hermes raised his head. 

“Can we talk?” 

Understandably, that stalled Charon. He didn’t need to be fluent in his body language to see the way he stilled, the sudden and undeniable fear in his eyes. 

Nothing ever good came from that phrase. 

Charon recovered, as much as he could, his hand slipping down to his side. He nodded slowly. 

“Can we go to your room?” Hermes asked tentatively. 

Charon nodded again, his head moving like it didn’t want to. Hermes shifted, walking into the dark of the hallway and couldn’t help but think that it might be the last time he saw the house. He knew the Charon shared the same thought. 

They walked together in the cool dark of Charon’s room and Hermes sat down at the edge of Charon’s bed, bouncing as he settled. Charon settled down like a ghost, slipping to Hermes’ side. The scant space between them might as well have been a canyon. 

Hermes’ fingers fiddled, playing with the end of his shirt, his head bowed. He licked his lips. 

“This is hard,” he said. 

The great body next to him stiffened and Hermes didn’t need to look to know the way he held himself. The way his body locked up during difficult conversations. Hermes hated he was the one to do that to Charon. 

“I’m not saying never,” Hermes said with a deep breath, his face pulling in a shaky smile. “I’m just saying that I. . .” 

His fingers curled tight, his knuckles aching from the strain of it. He sucked in a quick breath and turned to look at Charon, kicked and upset and waiting for the bad news. 

“You met my family,” Hermes tried to explain. “You know what they’re like. You know what my dad’s like. How many siblings I have.” 

Charon’s brow knit tight, his eyes darting as he looked from one of Hermes’ eyes to the other. Still waiting for Hermes to make sense. 

“And my mom and how she just. . . ran away.” Hermes tried to get a full breath of air in, but simply couldn’t. “Its all disjointed and it doesn’t make sense and its just a huge damn mess. And I hate that they have any influence on me and my choices but they do and I. . .” 

Hermes swallowed heavily and it felt like pushing down sand. Relationships had never come easy to him. Not real ones. Swift flings, short interactions, brief affairs that fizzled out quicker than they came on. What he had with Charon was a glorious fluke. The way Charon had slotted so neatly at his side, the way they folded in one another, complemented one another. The hurdles they had held hands and climbed over together. Effortless in a way Hermes hadn’t been expecting. 

He wasn’t ready for it to be over. 

“My views on marriage are. . . not great,” he admitted. “Its not something I’ve ever wanted. Actually its something I want to avoid. I’m just. . . not the marrying type. Zeus has knocked that out of me. He makes it look so bad.” 

Hermes laughed bitterly and ran a hand through his hair. 

“It's frustrating sometimes,” he said, ignoring the way his voice crackled. “Because thats what you’re supposed to do right?” Get married, move in together, have kids? But I’ve never. . .” 

He looked feebly up at Charon, feeling smaller than he ever had before. 

“I just can’t,” he said. “And. . . and I know. . . I know this is probably a deal breaker–”

Large hands encapsulated his own, sliding over quickly and gripping on tight. Hermes barked a half laugh, half cry and bowed his head, hating how quickly he crumpled. Charon had that effect on him, but because it was Charon, it was okay. 

Hermes tilted, pressing his head against Charon’s arm, forcing that physical connection between them again. That same big hand, once again adorned with the rings Hermes had stolen, cupped his face and tilted his head up. Not quite relief washed over Hermes, that same unsettled tightness that had been building within his chest not so easily brushed aside, but gently unhinged. A thumb ran over his cheek, tracing the bone and squishing the skin. The cool of the room chilled Hermes when Charon had to pull back. 

<i’m not letting you leave that easy> he said and Hermes coughed out a weak laugh. <marriage isn’t important. you’re important. you’re too important to me>

Hermes couldn’t stop the hysterical shaking laughter that shivered over his body or the way he clung to Charon, gripping tight to his arms. He had been so sure that it was a priority for Charon, that this difference in their goals would split them. 

<i don’t need to be married to you, Hermes>

Hermes pulled tight to Charon’s shirt, pulling him closer, giving him little room to talk between them. Hermes could barely see what he said from his periphery. 

<i just want to be with you>

Hermes leaned his weight against Charon, burying his face in Charon’s neck. He laughed, coughing out and raking his body, shoulders bouncing with each hiccup. Charon sighed, relief coming to him easier than it was to Hermes, and he wrapped his arms around his shorter frame. Gravity took over and they fell back onto the bed in a conjoined heap, waiting for Hermes to calm down. 

When it finally subsided, Hermes sighed and felt a tension he had been carrying for days ebb from his body. 

“Its not a no,” Hermes said. “But its not a yes either.” 

Charon hushed him and stroked back his hair, tucking thick locks behind his ear. He rested his lips against the top of Hermes’ head, shushing him into relaxation. 

Hermes wanted to fall away with Charon, but he felt it was important to keep going. The words he had chosen still lodged in his throat. He wriggled back to look Charon in the eye, framing his face. 

“But if I did have to get married,” he said. “I’d want it to be with you.” 

Charon smiled, soft in the little streams of light that peered out from around the curtains. He pressed one more kiss to Hermes’ forehead, soft but solid, a firm reminder of where he was and how he wouldn’t be going anywhere else. 

Hermes nestled closer, curling his body up onto the bed and pressing into the space he had carved out for himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soulmates. . . talking shit out. . . in love . . .;A; 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	12. Surprise - Thanatos & Charon, Charon/Hermes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos meets someone new

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> working title for this was "kitchen twink"

Thanatos' eyes weren't open as he shuffled down the hallway. Hair askew and scratching his stomach, he yawned, muted and wide. The carpet was only semi matted from the previous home owner, but still plush enough that it felt pleasant on his feet. A vast difference from the stale tightly packed fibers of a dorm room hallway. 

Thanatos had been living with his brothers for less than a month, opting instead to commute to class for his last year of college than stay on campus. He preferred the quiet ambiance of his near silent brother and his perpetually sleepy twin. And it beat waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night from nightmares of Hypnos, crumpled and unmoving. 

He hadn't had a nightmare in weeks. 

For that, he was grateful. 

All in all, living with his brothers was a net positive. 

However. There were downsides.

Thanatos walked into the sunny shine of the open end of the house, large bay windows on either side. It rose from the kitchen and set in the living room. The house was brightly lit despite all the lights having been turned off. Sunny and warm and perfect to step into first thing in the morning. Thanatos enjoyed his moments of solitude in those early hours. 

And he would've that morning. If he had been alone. 

Harsh crunching came from deep in the sunlight, capturing Thanatos' full attention. A man, short and stocky, stood in his kitchen. He had a compact build, shown off with strong bare legs. Dark hair, askew from sleep, was pushed back and out of his eyes. Arrays of sunset colored earrings dangled from either ear. Dark eyes that looked like they were laughing giggled when they met Thanatos'. 

He was dressed in a black shirt that was 3 sizes too large that hung off one shoulder. It has a picture of a hearse on it and read _Plenty Of Room To Get Laid. . . To Rest._

The man held a bowl of cereal in one hand and scooped a spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth. He smiled as he took three more rapid crunches before he waved the spoon in the air. 

"Hi!" 

First instinct told Thanatos that they were being robbed, but he was sure robbers wore pants and stole more than cereal. The casual way he wore another man's shirt told a different story altogether. 

"Charon!?" Thanatos called down the hall. 

There was a moment of blissful silence, punctuated by cereal munching, before the loud whump rumbled down the hall. Pounding footsteps thundered before the door at the far end of the hall swung open. Charon filled the doorway, robe flying open around him, long stringy hair sleep rumpled and in his face. His eyes were wide in the way one would when rudely woken from deep sleep. He saw Thanatos and marched down the hall. 

<I can explain> Charon said.

"What," Thanatos said, pointing to the stranger in his kitchen. "Is that?" 

<I can explain!> Charon said again.

"You can't just–" Thanatos glared at the man eating his heart conscious cereal and switched to hands. <You can't just bring your flings home!>

<He's not a fling!> Charon argued. 

"And he can speak ASL," the stranger offered around a mouthful of food. "By the way." 

Thanatos glared over his shoulder. The stranger bounced his brows and took another bite. Thanatos scoffed and returned his ire to his brother. 

"You can't just bring . . . hussies into the house!" 

The stranger snorted and it sounded like Cheerios went up his nose. 

"Hussy!?" he asked, his voice cracking. He pointed with the spoon. "Lemme guess. This must be Thanatos." 

<He's my boyfriend> Charon explained, exasperated. 

"Boyfriend?" Thanatos asked. "Since when!?" 

Charon stalled, his fingers fumbling as he looked from the munching man and Thanatos. 

<. . . three years>

"Three–!?" Thanatos squawked. 

"You didn't tell him about me!" the man laughed. "Boss, I know you're a man of very few words, but this one might take the cake." 

Charon flopped his hands uselessly in the air and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. His hand went behind his ear, looking for a cigarette, and scratching when he didn't find one. Thanatos hunched and looked back at Charon's boyfriend, looking for answers. 

The man held out his hand as a peace offering. 

"Hermes," he said. 

Thanatos eyed the hand, fingers calloused and dirt under his fingernails. Conceding, he sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, and shook the hand. Hermes shook it with far too much vigor and overpowered Thanatos' arm.

"Thanatos," he said. "But you already knew that." 

Hermes' smile was wide and confiding, like they suddenly shared a secret or were a part of some underground club. Thanatos really wished it came with pants. 

"So what?" Thanatos asked, taking his hand back and rubbing it on his sweats. "You just snuck him into the house?" 

"Oh no I crawled through the window," Hermes said. "Obviously."

"Obviously," Thanatos said, giving his brother a flat stare. 

<I had no say> Charon said. 

Thanatos was beginning to get an idea just what kind of man Hermes was. If he could get unflappable Charon do whatever he wanted, there was little say Thanatos had about pants. 

"Okay," Thanatos sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "How are we going to tell Hypnos?" 

Charon looked off to the side sheepishly.

<Actually. . .>

The door to the master bedroom opened, post construction double doors added in to accommodate a wheelchair. Hypnos lazily slid out, still dressed in his pajamas, housecoat, and fuzzy slippers. His eye mask was high up on his head, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. A smile grew across his face at the array of people in front of him.

"Hey Hermes," he said. 

"Hey there kiddo." Hermes waved. 

Thanatos threw his hands in the air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love Than in this AU so much
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	13. Quinoa - charon & thanatos & hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos can't cook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos can't cook for shit
> 
> he tries
> 
> oh my god does he try

A bowl of grey speckled mush was placed down on the wooden table with a quiet click. The clean off white ceramic was rotated until the most aesthetically pleasing angle was presented. Which implied there was an angle of the supposed food that was actually nice to look at. 

Hypnos stared at it long and hard, contemplating his life choices, before steeling a smile on his face that he hoped didn't look like a ghoulish grimace and looking up to his brother. He sent silent psychic messages for someone,  _ anyone _ to take pity on him. 

"It's quinoa," Thanatos said with some pride, fists on his hips. 

The smile struggled, closed mouthed and holding back silent screams. 

"It's high in protein and fiber  _ and _ magnesium." That particular fact seemed to delight Thanatos especially. Thanatos had become very insistent on Hypnos' magnesium intake. Married with his vegetarian diet, Thanatos had developed new and unusual ways to pervert the kitchen. 

"And a bit of natural sugar for flavor," Thanatos said. He leaned across the kitchen and grabbed a handful of blueberries. He sprinkled them from a magical height, each fruit plonking down making the gelatinous bowl of goop jiggle. They were stunning, but there was no dressing up  _ quinoa. _

Thanatos smiled eagerly and his eyes looked from his hard cooked breakfast and Hypnos' wan smile. 

"Go ahead," he said. "Give it a try." 

One more plea into the ether for maybe a meteor to strike Hypnos down and save him from quinoa. 

No such luck. 

It was love for his brother that made Hypnos pick up the spoon. The quinoa shifted around the metal as it dipped into the porridge, suctioning it in below the surface like quick sand. It was less an effort of physical strength and more an effort of wills to pull up a gloopy spoonful of quinoa and it made a sad suction noise as it came up. 

Hypnos tried it. Swallowing was like pushing down sand. 

"Mmmm," he lied. 

Thanatos smiled, pleased with himself and his perceived success. 

"You see? Good for you  _ and  _ tasty," Thanatos said. 

"Mmhmm." Hypnos nodded. He was having trouble swallowing. 

"Oh right, almost forgot." 

Thanatos rustled through the fridge and it groaned to keep the summer temperatures from disrupting it's chilled contents. Despite blocking Hypnos' view, he knew exactly what Thanatos was getting. He found it within himself to swallow and take another bite. With the blueberries it wasn't so bad. Hypnos could hear juice being poured into a glass. 

"Here you go," Thanatos said, placing the cup of apple juice next to the bowl, twisting it in place until it looked just right. 

"Thank you Thanatos," Hypnos said. 

"Alright, I've got to go." Thanatos looked at his watch, mind already out the door. "Mother has a new line up of potential attendants for me to interview and we've got a new client coming in." 

"If you keep standing around to chit chat, you'll be late," Hypnos said. 

"Ha ha," Thanatos said flatly. He leaned down to plant a quick kiss to the top of Hypnos' head. "Okay love you, bye." 

He was gone before Hypnos even noticed. Always quick to get in his good byes and quicker to leave, like he had disappeared. 

Leaving Hypnos alone. With the quinoa. 

Without Thanatos there to see, Hypnos frowned down at the 'high in magnesium' mush. He swirled it around in the bowl, hoping that it would transform into something appetizing. 

Thanatos was right. Eating healthy would help with Hypnos' CFS but did it have to be so unappealing? 

The door down the hall creaked open, announcing not for the first time how much its hinges needed to be oiled. Hypnos stared at the opening of the hallway that filtered into the kitchen until the gargantuan shadow of his eldest brother consumed it. 

Dressed for the day and long hair pulled back, an unlit cigarette sat between his lips. It was still before his first coffee and Charon had yet to fully wake up. He blinked until he saw Hypnos sitting feeble and hunched over at the table. 

"Help," Hypnos said. He raised a full spoon of health conscious slop and let it slide off back into it's bowl with a series of  _ plop plop plop _ s. 

Charon's brow furrowed. He shuffled closer, glaring at the offending meal, inspecting it without regard for his younger brother. He sniffed the air once and recoiled in obvious offense. Finally, he turned that glare to Hypnos for way of explication. 

"Thanatos," Hypnos said. 

Charon sighed, his face relaxing. He plucked the cigarette from his lips and tucked it behind his ear. With a disapproving click of his tongue and a shake of his head, he scooped up the bowl and removed it from Hypnos' reach. 

Hypnos watched Charon bustle about the kitchen, looking more at ease than Thanatos' stiff rigid recipe following demeanor or Hypnos' own brand of chaos that typically ended in fire alarms. Charon dumped the quinoa into the trash and reached for the pantry instead. A closed tupperware tin was filled with blueberry muffins Charon had made yesterday morning and he pulled one out to toss underhand at his younger brother. Hypnos was not known for his dexterity and the muffin bounced from hand to hand before he finally managed to catch it.

"Thank you Charon!" Hypnos said. 

Charon groaned, taking a muffin for himself and a second, probably for his boyfriend. He ruffled his hand through Hypnos' unkempt hair before heading out the door. 

Hypnos sat in the quiet of the kitchen, warming himself under the rays of sun that shone in through the window and illuminated the kitchen counters to glow gold. A soft breeze came in and ruffled the napkins on the table. Birds sang from the trees in the backyard. 

Hypnos ate his muffin and drank his juice and had the best brothers in the whole world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Momo's strugglebus face Hypnos can be found here](https://twitter.com/MomoSweetPeach/status/1358798310098821120?s=20)
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	14. The Home - Hypnos and ensemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hypnos goes to the Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we need a more Hypnos centric story

The long line of cars parked all the way down the street were for the funeral home. It always got that way before a big funeral, all the staff scrambling around to get last minute details in place. They took the street parking on threat of tow to save space in the parking lot around back for the mourning procession. 

Hypnos liked it when there was a big turnout for funerals. It meant the deceased was well loved. 

Hypnos’ chair quietly whined as he pushed it down the block. The wheels bumping ever so slightly where the concrete slabs intersected. He gently nudged the drive control to the side to swerve past a well known crack, almost on muscle memory. The envelope could have gone in the saddle bag on the back, but Hypnos preferred to keep it on his lap. 

Charon leaned on the brickwork outside of the home, halfway through a cigarette. Charon wasn’t typically at the home on service days. No one really liked being reminded that death included the dead and all the trappings came along with it and keeping the eerily tall mortician out of sight and out of mind helped with the mood. He was out of gown, but dressed down in one of his tacky shirts and all his jewelry having been removed told Hypnos he was just on break. The prep room must have been busy. 

Charon heard the quiet whine of Hypnos’ chair and turned to give the oncomer his full attention. A small smile quirked at his lips and put out his cigarette. 

“Well hey there,” Hypnos said with a little wave. “Aren’t you bright eyed and bushy tailed.” 

Charon pushed off the wall, his attention enough of a silent greeting. Hypnos had grown used to the slight body language of his older brother. 

“Just here to drop off some pamphlets,” Hypnos said, waving the envelope in the air. “Then I suppose its back to the cave from which I came. I’m sure you can relate.” 

Charon snorted and fell into step just behind Hypnos. He aimed his chair up the ramp and leaned back against the headrest. The florist from Elysium was still running up and down the front steps, carrying a giant wreath adorned with a splay of white roses and lilies. Running just behind them was another carrying a large photograph print out of a thankfully older looking gentleman. 

Hermes practically flew out the front doors. He paused, seeing Hypnos round the corner of the ramp. 

“Hey there kiddo, didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, placing his hands on his hips. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. 

“I often don’t expect to be where I am either,” Hypnos said. 

“Well tread carefully,” Hermes said. “Your twin is throwing a shit fit.” 

“I suppose I’ll tread like I’ve never treaded before,” Hypnos said. 

Hermes held the door open for him, holding up a hand to pause Hypnos from the oncoming rush of his delivery boys, before signalling to move in. 

“Oh hey big guy, when do you get off work tonight?” Hermes asked. 

Charon shrugged. Hermes frowned, over exaggerated. 

“Give me an answer or I will drag you from the slab,” he threatened with no bite behind it. Hermes would never go near the prep room, especially when Charon was working. It didn’t suit his constitution. 

Charon signed a late hour, but it seemed to satisfy Hermes. 

“Alright, see you then!” 

Charon held up his hand, index, pinky, thumb, and cocked it to the side. Hermes mimicked the gesture. 

“See you around, kid!” Hermes waved. 

“Bye!” Hypnos chirped but Hermes was already off and running back to his van. 

The interior of the home was a buzz, loud in a way that was privy only to the home’s employees. During service, a somber silence descended over the home. Quiet conversation of mourners that was often muted by soft padding and strategically constructed walls to prevent echoing. But in the moments prior was a mad scramble to set the stage just perfectly for a captive audience. The idea being that nothing was out of place and they did not notice the work that had gone into it. Everything as it should be so that they could focus on the one thing they were there for. That the attention went to what was most important. 

Charon ruffled Hypnos’ hair and headed towards the back of the Home, around a corner where his door was hidden and he could be tucked safely away in the basement. 

A shorter woman, dreadlocks falling out of their pin, stopped short in front of Hypnos’ chair. 

“H-h-hypnos!” she squeaked. “You’re here!” 

“It sure does seem that way,” Hypnos said. 

Her eyes flickered, looking up and down Hypnos’ form, wide and nervous. A small tight smile pulled across her face. The feather duster in her hand branded like a weapon. 

“I just vacuumed,” she let Hypnos know for some reason. 

“Yeah and it looks great!” 

Dusa opened her mouth to say something, the words choking in a quiet ‘ah’ before she snapped it shut again. She breathed in deep, setting aside whatever it was she was going to say. 

“Well good to see you!” she said and all but ran off. 

“She sure does a good job around here,” Hypnos said and pushed his wheelchair over the freshly cleaned carpeting. 

The last minute details were being put into place for a noon service and guests would be filing in soon. Hypnos could hear the sound of his brother’s voice, barking out orders from the secondary door way into the chapel. He made his way over and paused at the hunched over, melancholy figure that sat at the base of the stairs. Unmoving, head in his hands, looking for the world like he might be crying. 

“Orpheus?” Hypnos asked, sliding up alongside the assistant. “You look like someone kicked you in the shins. Do you need a doctor or something?” 

Orpheus slowly looked up to Hypnos, his fingers dragging down the extra skin of his face, pulling at his eyelids until the pinks showed. 

“Hypnos,” he said, his voice wavering with profound sorrow. 

“Oh no, you did hit your shins.” Hypnos frowned, matching his dismay. 

“Worse,” Orpheus said, his voice cracking. “They requested the procession song be _Pour Some Sugar On Me_.” 

A delighted smile erupted across Hypnos’ face. He steepled his fingers in a tiny clap. 

“Oh wow, this guy sounds really cool,” he said. “Well. . . sounded. I really like the fun ones.” 

Orpheus let out a mournful wail and hid his face in his hands again. He shook his head, muttering something or another about deep regrets. 

Hypnos continued his journey into the sanctuary. The benches were decorated in whites and greens and the floral wreath with the deceased visage sat prominently on display before the viewing room. Dark maroon curtains were pulled back to reveal handsome wooden doors, securely locked until the immediate family arrived to gaze upon Charon’s work. 

Assistants bustled about putting last minute decor on end caps of the benches, but the funeral director was nowhere in sight. 

Hypnos’ mom on the other hand. 

Rounding the corner, Hypnos almost came wheel over toe with the imposing woman. He yelped at her sudden presence, never not cowed by her towering, statuesque figure. Far quieter than her son, Nyx held equal amounts of shock. She seemed to float backwards, giving them both the space they needed to avoid impact. 

“Hypnos,” she said breathlessly. “My child, what are you doing here?” 

“Uh oh hi mom. . . mother,” Hypnos fumbled. “Just. . . delivering some pamphlets, ha ha!” 

He laughed nervously and waved the envelope in the air. 

Nyx sighed, a soft smile coming to her lips, and Hypnos was sure it had something to do with the fact that he was being put to good use. She folded her hands in front of her. 

“It is good to see you,” she said in that lilting dulcet tone of hers. “How are you faring today?” 

Hypnos was teetering on the edge of a solid pass out. He had been daydreaming about his pillows for the past hour or so that it took to meander to the Home from the house. He had been up late, fiddling with the design of the pamphlets, not to mention up early that morning printing them out and folding them. He was mentally taxed. He was physically exhausted. 

He put on his best smile. 

“Great!” he said. 

Nyx sighed, content with his answer, and glad her son was in the excellent condition she expected of him. 

“That is good to hear,” she said. “Your brother is in his office.” 

She gently cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his temple, a quiet praise for Hypnos. He disliked distorting the truth as he did, far more comfortable with his natural bluntness, but Hypnos had learned that Nyx was far more favorable when everything was a-okay. 

She floated away, her dress long and obscuring smart, deadly heels. Hypnos continued his chore. 

He pulled up to the tiny entrance of a small hole in the wall office. No bigger than a closet and covered from almost floor to ceiling in neatly arranged notes, mounted plastic wall files, and calendars. A large desk dominated the room, but there was just enough space for the owner of the office to pace back and forth. 

Thanatos had the unnatural ability to look neat and put together despite the fact that he was ‘flying off the handle.’ Charon’s words. And Hermes’. Sometimes Dusa’s and Orpheus’ and on occasion, Hypnos. Thanatos would never admit to the stress. 

“What do you mean you’re running late?” Thanatos barked to no one, staring off into the open air. He paused, listening to someone who wasn’t there, and scowled. “I don’t care about traffic, you should have been here an hour ago!” 

He turned to pace the other way and Hypnos saw the glowing blue light of his bluetooth. He paused, his ire dissipating for just a second at seeing Hypnos’ chair dominating the doorway it couldn’t fit through. He held up one finger and turned back to glaring at the ground. 

“If you are not here in the next 15 minutes, consider our contract terminated,” he seethed and all but ripped the bluetooth off his ear, slamming it down on the table. He closed his eyes, took a deep even breath, and found his patience. Finally, he looked up to Hypnos again. 

“Hypnos,” he said. 

“Pamphlet delivery,” Hypnos sang, waving the envelope in the air. 

A relieved smile came over Thanatos and he relaxed, even if only by a micrometer. He walked around his desk to take the envelope from his brother. 

“You’re a life saver,” he said, opening it up to look inside. “You used the copy I gave you right?” 

“Eh, I thought I’d make a few tweaks here and there,” Hypnos said. 

Thanatos paused, as still as a statue, and stared death down at his twin. 

“Kidding.” Hypnos grinned. 

Thanatos took another deep breath, counting backwards from 10, and reminding himself just how much he loved his brother. He inspected the folded pamphlets and a calm came over him again. 

“These look pretty good Hypnos,” he said. “Is that a new font?” 

“Yup! Thanks for noticing!” 

“Hmm.” Thanatos rubbed a corner. “Your printer is going to need a cleaning soon, its spotting.” 

Hypnos leaned over and saw the vague shadow under Thanatos’ thumb. 

“Wowie, Than,” he said. “Only you would notice that.” 

“Yeah but I did.” 

Thanatos placed the pile down on his desk, ready to hand out to the assistants still scrambling around to appease him. Those detail oriented eyes turned to Hypnos and scanned him. 

Hypnos knew what he was looking for. Small tells that Hypnos would never be able to figure out, that he would never be able to hide. A story that Thanatos could read like an open book, one that Hypnos could never lie about. 

Thanatos never asked how Hypnos was doing. At least not out loud. 

“I need to go for a walk,” he said, pushing off his desk. “I’ll walk home with you.” 

Translation: I’ll make sure you don’t fall asleep on the way home. Again. 

“Aw Than, you don’t have to,” Hypnos said. “I can make it home okay.” 

“Who says this is for you?” Thanatos said, stepping out of his office and locking it up. “I need a break.” 

Hypnos took the out and smiled up at his twin. 

Thanatos passed the pamphlets off to Orpheus, if anything to get him off the stairs and doing something, and walked home with his brother. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	15. Tattoos - Charon & Thanatos & Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers get matching tattoos.

Than’s legs bounced rapidly. His hands were clamped between his legs. His breathing was steady, even, betraying nothing. 

A gentle hand on his shoulder told him he was betrayed. 

Thanatos looked sharply to the ringed finger that curled around his shoulder, up the arm, to the bland look on his brother’s face. Charon squeezed his shoulder once. 

“I’m not nervous,” Thanatos said. 

Charon huffed and took his hand back. 

“I’m not!” 

His brother didn't often smile, but for the briefest of seconds he did. As if Thanatos told a joke. 

Than opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when he heard snoring. He leaned over to see Hypnos asleep in his chair, head leaned all the way back on its rest, mouth open catching flies. 

"He's asleep," Thanatos said. "How is he asleep?" 

Charon's brows rose at the obvious question. His lips quirked in humor. 

Thanatos pointed a stern finger. 

"I am  _ not  _ nervous!" 

The sound of a buzzing tattoo gun punctuated Thanatos' statement. It droned and drowned out the punk rock playing over the speakers. The floor to ceiling windows that made up the front of the shop let in a fair amount of light that did not go much farther than the waiting area. The curved logo of the shop's moniker cast a shadow of its blocky serif font, somehow gothic and cowboy at the same time. Only providing scant cover to the floor, the sun prickled against Thanatos' arm and made him itch. 

At least, he told himself it was the sun and not the anticipation. 

Thanatos leaned forward to look around his brother into the shop. A woman lay face down on a specifically designed table, her head nestled in her arms, at complete ease. Her top had been raised and an intricate design of cherry blossoms was being etched into her side. Falling pinks that was driven rapidly into her skin, needle pricks moving at top speeds. 

Thanatos' leg was bouncing again. 

<it's not that bad> Charon said. 

"That's easy for you to say," Thanatos seethed at his already ink stained, tattoo laden elder brother. 

Charon simply folded his hands in his lap, sitting back. Hypnos snored. Thanatos' leg bounced. 

He stopped, his heel clicking on the floor. With a thousand yard stare, Than sighed. 

"How hard was your first one?" he asked. 

Charon's brows rose to his hat and he tilted his chin to look at his little brother over his glasses. Charon went to respond when he was interrupted before he could even start. 

“Charon, my man!” 

A robust looking fellow with a perfectly shaved head walked across the shop in long strides. Tall, but nowhere near Charon’s height, all smiles, and more ink than actual skin tone. Thanatos eyes the little skull on his cheek with suspicion. 

He wrapped his arms around Charon’s slim frame and patted his back in two solid thumps. Touch averse Charon froze and waited for the moment to be over, glancing blandly over to Thanatos. The big man stepped back, holding Charon by the arms, and inspected him. 

“Glad to see you back,” he said. “Ready for something new? And these must be the brothers.” 

“What?” Hypnos snorted, sitting up in his chair. “I wasn’t asleep.” 

<this is Broker> Charon said to Thanatos and it was evident that the man didn’t speak a lick of ASL. 

“Thanatos,” Than said, holding out his hand. Broker shook it with vigor and it wobbled Thanatos’ entire arm. 

“Call me Wretch,” the big man said, still vigorously shaking Thanatos’ arm. 

Thanatos wasn’t going to call him ‘Wretch.’ 

“And this is Hypnos,” Thanatos said. 

“I sure am,” Hypnos said, blinking sleep out of his eyes. 

Broker finally released Thanatos’ hand and Thanatos pulsed it open and closed, his fingers having been squished within an inch of their life. He wriggled his fingers to encourage blood circulation again. 

Broker stood back, hands on his hips, and scanned over the three brothers. 

“I gotta say,” he said. “You look nothing alike.” 

“Thanks!” Hypnos chirped. 

Broker looked down to Hypnos. 

“You’re a weird one aren’t you?” 

“Yup!” Hypnos said. 

“Okay,” Broker said, looking back up at Charon. “I can see it between you two.” 

Feeling like an anomaly, Thanatos followed them into the shop. There was a short flight of stairs without any accessibility. Hypnos had to leave his chair behind, shuffling sleepy and slow behind the rest of them. 

“If you can walk, why do you use the wheelchair?” Broker asked, guiding them all to a line of chairs to sit in. 

“Its called style,” Hypnos said, plopping down in the offered seat. “Look it up.” 

Prepared for the visit, all three of them bared their left arms, giving Broker access to their shoulders. Hypnos in his sleeveless top, Charon with a rolled up sleeve, and Thanatos removed his button down and sat in his undershirt. He pulled out vellum thin paper with an etched design that had been agreed upon. One by one, he rolled deodorant on to their skin and firmly pressed the thin paper to the applied area. Big, clubbed fingers and wide palms pushing hard to transfer the sketch. Charon hardly budged, Thanatos was rocked slightly, Hypnos nearly pushed off his chair. He still smiled, just happy to be there. 

Design transferred, they were ushered to the large mirror in the back. Not so much tacked to the wall as it was leaned against it, golden ornate filigree framed around it. Charon crouched down to his brother’s level and together they lined up to see the artwork. 

Charon and Hypnos had discussed and designed it. Hypnos had drawn it. Thanatos had been divorced from the entire process other than the tentative agreement. 

“Oh,” he said, understanding. “Okay.” 

Three skulls, lined up in a row. Alone they were static and functional, but together they made sense. Charon’s facing forward, a coin in its mouth. Hypnos’ to the left, a poppy adorned its temple. Thanatos’ to the right, a butterfly landed on its crown. 

Thanatos had rejected the idea of a skull etched permanently into his skin. Charon had made the argument that they worked in death, but that was easy for him to say, already adorned in a multitude of skulls. Thanatos had been wary of the signifiers, their unique identifiers that were to symbolize them. The poppy for Hypnos, to help those rest. The coin for Charon, to ferry the dead from ruin to peace. 

Hypnos and Charon had been the ones to choose the butterfly for Thanatos, a symbol of peace in death and the harmony Thanatos had brought to the grieving, or so his brothers had explained. All tying them to the Home. All tying them to one another. 

It didn’t look nearly as cheesy as Thanatos had been expecting. 

“Okay,” he said and nodded to the expectant reflections of his brothers. “I’m ready.” 

The three open tables on the other side of the shop gave Thanatos the prime view of the woman and her cherry blossoms. She flinched as the gun stippled over her hip and Thanatos had to look away. 

“Are you going to do all of us?” Thanatos asked, settling into his seat. 

“Lord no,” Broker said, slapping on some gloves. “Do I look like I’m made of time? My apprentices Chef and Shade will.” 

Two women seemed to apparate from the ether, probably having walked out from back rooms, each with their own side tables of prepared inks and sterile packaging of needles. The taller one settled at Hypnos’ side which earned a more than pleasant  _ ‘hi’  _ from his brother. Thanatos got the shy looking girl with a nose ring. There was no way she was older than he was. 

His head whipped back to Broker, already setting up to add another piece of artwork to Charon’s body modified collection. 

“Apprentices?” he hissed, almost trying to keep quiet so that the young woman wouldn’t hear. 

Broker gave him a solid look of bamboozlement over his shoulder. 

“I assure you, they can do this just fine,” he said. “Keep your panties on.” 

Thanatos’ jaw dropped in offense, ready to huff at this very inconsiderate man. Charon beat him to it. 

<Broker is my regular> he said. <he does mine. you’ll be fine>

With that, he tilted his hat down over his eyes, leaned back in the chair, and crossed one ankle over the other on the foot rest. He breathed out a long sigh, the picture of pure relaxation. 

Thanatos huffed and leaned back in his chair. He looked to the girl, Shade, he assumed, and she was positively cowed. Embarrassed of her own abilities or lack thereof, she screwed on a fiddly little needle to her gun. 

“I’m sorry,” Thanatos muttered. 

“No I understand,” she said. “I would be a little hesitant too. But if it makes you feel better.”   


She held up her arm, covered in wailing green ghosts that slid over one another, from wrist to elbow. 

“I did all these myself.” 

Thanatos inspected the work. Detailed, clean lines, gorgeous gradations. He breathed in deep and tried to mimic his older brother, leaning stiffly against the hard cushion. 

“It does,” he said. “Thank you.” 

Shade smiled and pulled a face mask over her nose. She tested the gun twice, getting a feel for it, before leaning in. 

“You’re going to have to relax,” she said, looking up at Thanatos. “Unclench.” 

Thanatos released a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and unfurled his fist from around the arm. He couldn’t quite stop flexing, flinched for incoming pain. Deciding it was enough, Shade sighed and leaned in to start. 

It hurt. The rapidfire breaking of skin, the millions of sudden pricks that jabbed into Thanatos like unceasing needle point, hurt. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he had anticipated, but pain was pain. 

Thanatos, for all his bravado, did not care for pain. The muscle soreness of exercise and shin splints were fine, but real pain was something else. Scrapes and scratches and bruises, broken bones and stomach aches, all the way down to flu shots. Thanatos did  _ not  _ care for pain. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, his hand gripped the arm rest again, his leg began to bounce. 

Shade sighed and sat back. 

“I’m really going to need you to unclench,” she said, just as exasperated as Thanatos was. 

Than looked over at her, silently pleading for some sort of help. 

“Hey! Hey Than!” Hypnos flopped his arm over in Thanatos’ direction, much to the chagrin of his tattoo artist. “Hey!” 

“What Hypnos?” Thanatos asked weakly. 

“Theres a trick I learned in PT, you wanna know it?” he asked. 

Thanatos sat up a little straighter, brow furrowed, silently asking his brother what it was that he was on about. 

“When I have bad days,” Hypnos explained. “Eurydice taught me that counting my breath can sometimes help. I mean it doesn’t  _ exactly  _ get rid of the pain, but having something to focus on helps. You can focus on colors or numbers or fun little phrases. Its fun!” 

Hypnos always had a strange definition of fun. But if there was one person in the world who knew pain. . . 

“Counting huh?” Thanatos asked, sitting back in his seat. 

“Yeah just.” Hypnos breathed in deep through his nose for a long long beat. “Five or something,” he said, voice sounding like a helium balloon, before letting it all out again. “Five again.” 

“Okay,” Thanatos said. He closed his eyes. “Okay.” 

Wriggling his fingers out, planting his feet firmly on the ground, Thanatos breathed in. He counted to 5 on the inhale, counted 5 on the exhale. His shoulders sagged and, deciding he was ready, Shade continued her line work.

Hypnos was right. It didn’t stop the pain from happening, but the distraction helped him through it. Having only numbers to focus upon took him away from the tattoo parlor and the relently  _ prick prick prick  _ to his arm. His mind drifted. To work and the ever growing to do list he had. To the mail that was still out on the kitchen table. To the trip to the DMV he and Charon would be taking next week. 

To Hypnos. Lying in his bed on a bad day. Counting his breath. 

Thanatos opened his eyes and looked over to his brother. Hypnos was smiling pleasantly, off in some waking dream. His eyes were closed but he seemed to be mouthing words. From the little bob in his head, it might have been song lyrics. One of those obscure bouncing tunes he found in strange corners of the internet. 

Thanatos smiled and settled back in his seat. 

The session had a contradictory effect of simultaneously flying by while also dragging along. The pain molded into the background, the buzz of the gun nothing more than white noise. Thanatos found a groove in his mind, a meditative state, where thoughts were vacant and his mind could empty. He could see how Charon grew addicted to it. 

“Alright,” Shade said. “All set.” 

“Hm?” Thanatos asked, blinking his eyes open. The sun had moved and was no longer shining in through the front windows, opting instead to set on the other side of the building. 

“Thats it,” the tattoo artist said. “Looks like your brothers are finishing up too. You want to go see?” 

They stood in a line in front of the mirror again. The linework of skulls singing in a chorus line across mismatched skin. Fissures where bone met and detail work of petals, metal, and wings. They weren’t a perfect one to one style, but enough to show they were related. 

It suited them. 

“Hey how come yours look so much bigger than mine?” Hypnos asked. 

<it because you have noodle arms> Charon said. <we got more real estate>

“Its only because Thanatos stole it all.” Hypnos stuck his tongue out. 

“Hey,” Thanatos said. “I will not have my name slandered. Besides. I stole the brains.” 

Charon rapped the back of his knuckle to the top of Thanatos’ head. No pain, only irritation. Thanatos hid a smile. 

“Alright, looking good then?” Broker came up behind them, standing on tiptoe to see over Charon’s shoulder. “Are we satisfied?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yup!” 

Charon nodded. 

“Okay.” Broker clapped a hand to Charon’s shoulder, rocking him in place. “We’ll see you back here next week for color then?” 

“Wait,” Thanatos said. “We have to do this again!?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic made me fall in love with Than, he's such a nerd. 
> 
> I love writing all three of them together and their different voices and mannerisms. 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	16. Homecoming - Zag & Than, Zagreus/Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zagreus comes home

The Home was exactly as Zagreus had last remembered it. A stately structure, well kept. Deceiving in that it may be an actual house with a little family plus pet and not the second to final resting place for the deceased. 

Zagreus had only been there a handful of times, but he still remembered his way there. The hours were etched on the sign by the door but when Zagreus tried the handle it was unlocked. Rather than bursting in unannounced, Zagreus poked his head through a crack in the door, nervous that he might witness neat rows of corpses within. 

It was the same little foyer, the same waiting area to place coats, the same dark carpets and subdued lighting to maximize coziness and comfort. The hall was empty and glowed orange in a late summer afternoon sun. Lights clicked off down a hallway and the jangle of keys being flipped into a hand was punctuated by the soft footfalls as they marched down the carpet. 

Zagreus recognized the owner immediately. 

"Than!" he said. 

Thanatos Chthonic looked exactly as he had half a decade ago. A little fuller in the shoulders, a little taller, a few more bags beneath the eyes, his hair cropped a little shorter, but he stood the same. The confident way he held himself, the haughty expression he perpetually wore. 

The same sneer that crawled on his face like he smelled something distasteful. 

"Than! Hi," Zagreus said, stepping inside the Home. "It's so good to see you." 

A flood of memories rushed back in. It was after school all over again and they had come by the Home for some errand or another, a promise Thanatos would never try to get out of. Zagreus would typically wait outside, but he wasn't completely averse to sneaking in. 

Being back home, it was like no time passed at all. 

"How have you been?" Zagreus asked, grin wide and just happy to see his friend. "You look exactly the same." 

Thanatos said nothing. He only stared, wide eyed and closed mouthed, taking even breaths through his nose. 

"So you work here now huh?" Zagreus asked, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Yeah I swung by your house, well I suppose your old house now, and Nyx said you'd be down here. I guess it makes sense, keeping the business in the family and all–"

"You left." 

Zagreus' jaw clamped shut quick enough to make his teeth click. He always had a bad tendency to not notice death when it stared him in the face. Not when his Bubbe caught him with the car keys in his hand, not when he told his father he was dropping out of college, not even when his mother suggested that he stop visiting. Why would he notice it on his estranged best friend, clearly mismatching the joy Zagreus had at their reuniting. 

Stern frown etched into place, piercing unblinking eyes, pale and filled with unspoken threats. A tight jaw and hand clutched around the strap of his side bag. 

“Yeah,” Zagreus said. “I moved.” 

“And you said nothing,” Thanatos accused. 

“It happened all so quickly.” Zagreus rubbed at the back of his neck. 

“I’ll say,” Thanatos spat. “We went on winter break and you weren’t there when I came back. They still called your name during attendance. Your seat was empty!” 

“Its not like I had a choice.” 

“But you said nothing,” Thanatos snarled. 

Zagreus looked around the Home for some excuse, some explanation to give his friend, something that might make it right. There were only dim hallways and quiet chapels. A scoff clicked in the back of Zagreus’ throat when he found nothing. 

“My parents were getting a divorce,” he tried. “They were selling the house. I went to go live with Bubbe–”

“And you couldn’t call!?” Thanatos’ voice echoed off the tall ceilings, muted in only the way the funeral home could. 

“I didn’t have a cell phone,” Zagreus said. “You knew that.” 

“And you were apparently incapable of picking up a phone?” 

Zagreus sheepishly sunk into himself. Shoulders going high, arms stiff and fists tight in his pockets. 

“I didn’t know your number.” 

Wrong answer. Thanatos’ eyes widened with anger, that spit fire way that promised brimstone and smite. Zagreus had seen that expression before, but never to that degree and never aimed at him. Thanatos ground his teeth and finally looked away, sneering to the soft carpet. 

“Whatever,” he grumbled, pushing past Zagreus. “We’re closed.” 

He rushed to the door, long strides on long legs, moving to instantly disappear as quickly as Zagreus had from his life. Zagreus stumbled to follow. 

“Would it help if I said I’m sorry?” he tried. 

“No,” Thanatos spat and swung open the front door with too much force. He glared at Zagreus expectantly, waiting for him to get a move on. 

“What if I said I’m really sorry?” Zagreus tilted his chin so his eyes looked bigger, restraining to hold back a smile. 

Thanatos was unmoving and unamused. 

“Get. Out,” he said with venom. 

Whatever remnant of a smile Zagreus had died. His head drooped heavy and he slunk out of the house, taking the stairs one plodding step at a time. Behind him, he heard Thanatos harshly clunk the lock shut with more obvious force than what was necessary. Zagreus stood at the base of the Home with an odd familiarity and watched his very grown up friend huff one more time, back hunched and turned away from Zag.

“I’m back in town,” Zagreus said. “I’ve moved back.” 

The tension drooped slowly from Thanatos’ shoulders. Even from that distance, Zagreus could hear the frustrated huff he had heard so many times before. A little signifier that his friend was still in there and probably would never change. 

“I was hoping to reconnect,” he said. “With my best friend.” 

Thanatos turned slowly, the zombie gait expected from a funeral home director. He still held the same malice in his eyes, but it had died down, both of them knowing that Zagreus was playing on his gentler side. Zagreus smiled wanly, pathetically, and waited for his best friend to take pity on him. 

“You’re lucky I live around the corner,” he said, no less irritated, but the vitriol had died down. “You have a couple of blocks to catch me up.” 

“Yes,” Zagreus hissed excitedly and fell into step next to Thanatos as he led the way. 

Zagreus talked quickly and with his hands. He explained the series of fights that led up to his mother walking out on them, how his father had exploded and immediately put the house on the market. How Zagreus had been ushered off to the countryside to finish off through homeschooling from his Bubbe. The GED exam and getting into college. How he went undeclared and the friends he met. How he had dropped out. That earned him a disapproving click of the tongue from Thanatos. The series of jobs he took, trying to find the right one. 

“And now I’m back here!” Zagreus said. “Living. . . with my dad. Hoping to change that soon.” 

Zagreus stared long and off into the distance as all the reasons he wanted to move out replayed in his head. He shook his head, ridding himself of such demons, and smacked Thanatos on the arm. Thanatos stumbled forward from the hit and gave Zagreus a side eyed glare.

“But look at you, taking over the family business,” Zagreus said. 

Thanatos rolled his eyes. 

“Hardly,” he said. “Mother still manages most of the finances and hiring. She does a lot of the background behind the scenes work. I’m mostly client facing. Arrangements, scheduling, that sort of thing.” 

“That still seems like a lot,” Zagreus said, remembering the way Thanatos tended to downplay the mountain of work he did. 

Thanatos shrugged idly, giving nothing more up. 

Zagreus looked around at the sleepy street they found themselves on. Lined with trees in an almost natural way and long driveways that led up to single car garages, lending themselves to wide yards. The sounds of traffic had died down in favor for bird song. More idyllic for little families than the Home on the main drag. Hardly the picture for 20 somethings starting up their careers. 

“This seems nice,” Zagreus said, inspecting a basketball hoop that had been set up along the side of the road. “I thought you’d live in your old house forever until you inherited it.” 

“Yeah well.” Thanatos shrugged, as if leaving a mansion to buy a suburban one story was the normal thing to do. 

“Why’d you move?” Zagreus asked. 

There was another side eye. Another long suffering glare. But it was different. There was a dimness in the way Thanatos looked at Zagreus, a hollowness behind his eyes. 

Zagreus waited on an answer, but got none. 

“This is me,” Thanatos said, stopping in front of another long driveway, another wide lawn. A tree, thick and old, sat in the middle of it. The grass was well clipped and Zagreus knew, without having to ask, that Thanatos maintained it as such. 

“Did you want to say hi?” Thanatos asked. 

“Say. . . say hi?” Zagreus asked. 

“Yeah,” Thanatos turned to walk down the driveway, waiting expectantly on Zagreus. “I live with my brothers now.” 

Nyx had said as much. Thanatos and his brothers had all moved out and shared a house. The excitement of seeing Thanatos again had quelled the nerves of seeing another. 

Leaving his old neighborhood behind had been difficult. His friends, his teammates, his hobbies and school. Uprooting and giving it all up because someone else said so with little say in it himself. 

Especially since the lingering crush he had been harboring was just reaching its breaking point. 

Years away from the object of his affection made his feelings die down, subdue, set aside, but there had always been that lingering niggling feeling in the back of his mind. Classifying this one person as ‘the one that got away.’ 

The bubbling bouncing sparks that had sat in the pit of his stomach for months had begun to reignite that familiar dance when he had walked up to the Chthonic mansion, when he had run the doorbell as he did so many other times, half wondering, half hoping, on which brother would answer the door. 

Quelling Thanatos’ ire had set aside those colorful feelings. They started up again with a vengeance. 

“Uh. . . sure,” Zagreus said. “Sure.” 

The walk to the front door was longer than it had any right to be, following behind Thanatos, staring at the neat paint of green settled among white brickwork. He steeled his heart, repeating a mantra that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just seeing an old friend from high school. That was the beginning and ending of it. 

The front door went unlocked and Thanatos opened it with practiced ease, a movement without any thought. He was stepping out of his shoes before fully in the door. 

“Oh good you’re up,” he said. 

It was a big deal. 

Hypnos Chthonic looked exactly as he had when Zagreus last saw him and entirely different at the same time. Hair cut just a fraction shorter, curls no less untamed. He was taller somehow, longer, his limbs thin and covered in heavy swaths of oversized clothes. He wore bright colors, clips in his hair and a rainbow choker around his neck, a far cry from the dulled creature back in high school. There were more bags under his eyes, packed and ready for vacation. 

And there was the chair. 

He was seated back comfortably in a wheelchair, pulled up alongside a large kitchen table with a half finished puzzle scattered across it. A sketch book was in front of him, a blue pencil in hand mid twirl. His head had been draped back against a headrest, staring up at the ceiling. Slipper clad feet limply sat against a footrest, split in two and designed to swivel out of the way.

Hypnos’ brows rose slowly at the sight of a visitor, his head raising. A smile grew across his face, wide and the exact opposite of the deep frown that had been on his twin. The spit of sunshine that always managed to make Zagreus’ heart skip a beat. 

It did it again. 

“Hey,” Hypnos said lazily, drawing the word out. “I know you.” 

“Hypnos,” Thanatos said flatly, a half hearted warning. 

Hypnos snapped his fingers. 

“Zagreus right?” he said. 

Zagreus stood in the doorway, his feet rooted into the grooves of the cement. Breathing had gone completely forgotten. The smile that hinted at the corners of his lips began to hurt. 

Just like that, it all came crashing back. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I’m Zagreus.” 

Thanatos stood upright, having deposited his smart loafers in a shoe rack by the door, and gave Zagreus another bored looking, annoyed glare, but with far less malice. 

“Come in already,” he said. “And take your shoes off.” 

“Oh. Right,” Zagreus said, stepping out of his sneakers without untying them. 

He stumbled, conflicted between staring at Hypnos and looking everywhere but. Finding a spot directly in the halfway between the living room and the kitchen, standing one the interstitial partition where the floor shifted from carpet to tile, the bump pressing pleasantly into the arches of his feet. 

“Did you take your meds?” Thanatos asked under his breath, patting a hand on the back of the wheelchair. 

“Um.” Hypnos flopped his head on the rest again to look at his brother upside down. “I don’t know. Can’t remember.” 

“Hm.” 

Thanatos moved with easy grace through the kitchen, opening up a well organized drawer with a little plastic partition designed for such things. He pulled out what looked like a brightly colored box of chocolates and it took Zagreus a moment before he realized it was a weekly pill box. Thanatos snapped one section open and promptly closed it again with a soft  _ ‘yup.’ _

Zagreus looked back to Hypnos, eyes drawn like a magnet to his opposite pole, and was startled with Hypnos’ full attention. Still leaned back against the headrest, head flopped to the side to stare at Zagreus. Zagreus felt heat prickle up his face. 

His body was limp, boneless, lifeless. He was always pliable and walked through the world like he was in a dream, but seeing him laid out in a chair like that twisted something deep in Zagreus’ chest. He fretted, wondering what happened to earn Hypnos that place in the world. Was he sick? Was it permanent? Was he paralyzed? Did he have an accident? 

What hurt Hypnos? 

“You sure do like standing awkwardly around huh?” Hypnos said. 

Zagreus was dragged out his thoughts and realized he was staring. 

“I uh. . .” he said. 

“He’s saying take a seat, Zag,” Thanatos said. 

“Oh. Right. Okay.” 

Zagreus second guessed every movement, nearly tripping over himself to get to the table and even then trying to decide which seat would be less disastrous. Across from Hypnos meant looking at him, but was sitting next to him worse? Zagreus fell into the closest chair and could feel Thanatos’ judging eyes on the side of his head. Opting not to question what Zagreus’ damage was, Thanatos turned to his brother again. 

“Is Charon home?” he asked. 

“Nope,” Hypnos said, bending over his sketchbook, pencil posed for action. “He said something something date night.” 

Thanatos took a deep breath in and muttered something about hoping he doesn’t bring something back home. Sharp eyes went back to Zagreus and he could see the warmth starting to creep back into them. The no nonsense young man that Zagreus knew and loved that Zagreus could coax nonsense out of. Zagreus smiled up at him. 

“Well then,” Thanatos said, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Did you want to stay for dinner? I could make us something.” 

“I’d like that–” Zagreus started before immediately being cut off by a sharp sound. 

“No!” Hypnos said, sitting up. Before Zagreus could be hurt by Hypnos’ refusal at his visit, he quickly covered up with, “How about pizza? I’d like some pizza. Pizza is good and nice.” 

“and safe,” he muttered under his breath. 

He fixed Zagreus with a wide eyes grim smile and a quick jerk of his head. 

“I uh.” Zagreus looked up at an expectant Thanatos, oblivious to Hypnos’ silent warnings. “Pizza sounds good?” 

Thanatos’ brows rose. 

“Pizza it is then,” he said going for the phone. “Vegetable okay with you?” 

“Yup!” 

As Thanatos went for the phone and Hypnos breathed out a sigh and went back to his drawing, a nostalgia swept over Zagreus. A sweet feeling that settled into a hole he hadn’t realized had been there. Motions that had been done a thousand times before, in a different house, in a different time, but felt right in that place, in that time. Like a piece of a puzzle had snapped into place and what was wrong before had been turned around. 

Zagreus leaned over to look at the small portraits of rats that filled the notebook page and left no blank space. 

“Wow you’re really good,” he said, enjoying this new knowledge of Hypnos. 

Hypnos looked up, tilting his head awkwardly on a long neck and curls falling haphazardly into his eyes. A smile crossed his face, genuine and different from the placid neutral expression he normally wore.

“Thanks,” he said. 

Zagreus didn’t know why Hypnos was in that chair and he was too afraid to ask. 

Flowers would be acceptable. He should send Hypnos some get well flowers. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Than is a salty little bitch and I love him 
> 
> Also Zag is Jewish in this AU and I don't know how to tell y'all how much that means to me
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	17. Bad Day - Hypnos & Than & Charon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hypnos has a bad day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we haven't _really_ addressed Hypnos' CFS yet and I kinda wanted to do that.

Long before he opened his eyes, Hypnos knew it was going to be a bad day. The familiar sordid ache that pressed heavy on his joints found a sadistic streak, gripped him by the bones, and applied all the loving care of a hydraulic press. A creaking, sludging pain, throbbing and constant. From the knobs in his fingers to the twist of his hips. Ever movement, every shift, sent a thunder clap of searing white heat up his spine. He shivered, a cold sweat encapsulated his body, nausea that constricted up his throat and seeped like spider legs into his gray matter. His breath shook, rattled by the hypothermic shudder of his ribcage. 

Until finally, Hypnos could open his eyes. 

He knew this was coming, he had the sneaking suspicion his punishment was inbound. The energy spent the day before had been a price he had paid. It tickled in the back of his mind, but he had disregarded it, enjoying the Good Day to its fullest extent. His body screamed at him to regret it, but even as he lay heavy in his bed he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Even if he could form the thought, let it congeal in the fuzz and void in his brain, he couldn’t. 

All he could do was lay on his side, staring out into the golden hue of his room through gauzy curtains around his bed. The stiff stillness of his body and the ajar slack of his jaw. Not breathing despite the open airway. A battering ram fought just behind his eyes and Hypnos thought of them rolling out and the relief he might feel. 

The dent in his hip was beginning to complain in the way a toddler with an air horn might, pressed tight against his ear and drilling a scream to rattle his vision and rake across his teeth. In an effort to silence it, he rolled to his back, a breach so giant and great that moved mountains. Landforms that he carried on his shoulders as he rolled in the mattress that futilely tried to comfort him. 

Staring up at the twinkling lights and the art on his walls, the stuffed animals brought to him by his brothers and friends, the hill of pillows, constant comforts that did their best to soothe him in the worst of times. 

Forgotten as his mind fell deeper and deeper into the recesses of aching pain. 

The headache that perpetually took space in his mind without the common courtesy of paying rent came back with a cruel reminder. Sometimes having gone long forgotten but on the days it demanded Hypnos’ full attention, it received it. It laughed, taunting Hypnos, whispering sweet lullabies in his ear that he may never fall asleep again, that there was no escape. 

Hypnos ground his teeth. Hypnos blotted his eyes. Hypnos tried and tried to find his smile and could only cough. 

In his worst nightmares, the door creaked open, and Hypnos already knew. He knew that the state of his body had not gone unnoticed, that the sounds he tried to keep behind clamped lips had been a little too loud. His delay in getting up, the stillness of his room, whatever it was brought attention. 

The soft footfalls on plush carpet rang like death knells and Hypnos wanted to look away, to shy away from vision, to hide so no one could see. 

Than crouched next to the bed. 

“Hey,” he said softly, already knowing. 

Hypnos struggled to put a smile on his face, but he could feel the way his lips fought against it, the shake in the corners and quiver of his jaw. Gravity dropped his head to the side, his vision hazy and flooded with wayward curls, wet with sweat. Than, cool and even as still waters, wore pity poorly. He tried, Hypnos knew he did, the unspoken bond between them where Than knew of Hypnos’ feeble little pride. 

Still, Than brushed back his bangs. 

“Time for meds,” he said. 

“Appy juice?” Hypnos ask, but his voice didn’t want to cooperate, shooting in and out, the question going half asked. 

Than held up a glass, complete with straw for easy access, and an open palm with the small array of medication Hypnos took on a daily basis. 

“Of course,” he said. 

“Good brother,” Hypnos said, trying to sit up on his elbows. 

Thanatos didn’t ask. He didn’t pull out the pain chart, didn’t ask for numbers. He didn’t ask how Hypnos was feeling, if it was a good day or a bad day. He didn’t pry or probe or force information from Hypnos. Hypnos didn’t feel the need to figure out the truth, to tell a lie, to play down what he was feeling with Than. 

Thanatos just knew. 

Hypnos might have appreciated that most of all. 

He took the pills one by one, plucking them like skittles and swallowing through deep gulp through the straw. The juice was hardly acidic, but it struck the aggravated walls of Hypnos’ throat. He finished, heaving like a marathon runner, and his head hit the sandtrap of pillows on his bed. Than’s hand ran through his hair. 

“I need to go to work,” he explained softly. “One of us will be here if you need.” 

Hypnos couldn’t see the fine details as the wraith of his brother checked the room. Cleared a straight shot from the bed to the master bathroom. Making sure that Hypnos’ phone was plugged in and within grabbing distance. Leaving the remnants of the apple juice on the nightstand. Only when satisfied, as much as he could be, Than hovered over Hypnos’ bed. Soft lips pressing feather light to his forehead was a shock and Hypnos’ whole body jolted in a myoclonic jerk. Hypnos wasn’t sure when his eyes had closed or when sleep had started to sink his brittle iron body, sucking in air and eyes bulging wide as awareness hit him. 

“Sorry,” Than whispered. “I have to go. I love you.” 

“Love you too,” Hypnos said and found his smile, sinking and sinking in the swirl of ill ordered thoughts. 

Dreams and reality met, colors bleeding into one another to form the sickly brown green of pure black mixing with highlighter yellow. Stripped down to nothing more than pure sensations, Hypnos wasn’t sure which were the aches and pains of a broken body or the illusionary lies from misfiring synapses. Time was a construct made up by humans, revealed to Hypnos as he lay prone in that place. 

The door opening once again yanked Hypnos violently from a dream that had yet to start. On reflex, he sat stick straight up. His brain sloshed forward, slamming against his skull in a crumpled car pile up. His vision doubled and weakened teeth clamped hard together. Hypnos held still, waiting for the rush to pass. 

Blearily blinking wet from his eyes, he couldn’t quite make out the figure that poked in through his door, but he was unmistakable. 

<are you hungry?> Charon asked. 

The thought of food unsettled Hypnos. Past experience told him he could probably keep it down, but the churn told him otherwise. He shook his head and almost immediately regretted it. 

Charon came in anyways, holding a small bottle of protein shake, a long familiar sight. His brothers never insisted, never forced Hypnos to do anything he didn’t want to, but the mere act of care pushed Hypnos to accept the chocolate flavored sludge. He took a sip, as much as he could, just to get something into his body. Less for his own well being and more for the insistence that his brothers placed on him. The not quiet lecture of needing to keep with weight up. 

Hypnos would never admit it out loud, but the feeling of hollow glass bones and weightlessness in his body was a relief at times. 

Content that Hypnos would at least have something to eat, Charon placed a gentle caring hand to his head and moved to leave.

Hypnos complained, just a grunt, a whine in the back of his throat. A dog whistle of a noise that halted his brother, that earned Hypnos some attention. At Charon’s cool gaze, he raised his hands and grabbed at the air. Juvenile, he knew it, but sometimes words weren’t needed, sometimes they were too hard. 

Charon, who completely understood, crouched down to sit on the edge of Hypnos’ bed. A practiced instinct brought them close and Hypnos folded into Charon’s arms. Strong and long and tight around his slight frame, more comforting than his blankets. Hypnos tried to wind his arms around his brother, to hold the squeeze back, but the energy simply wasn’t there. Cheek pressed to a barrel chest and arms slack at Charon’s sides, Hypnos slid down and his arms went with him. 

Falling, falling, into a swirl. A dead drop of an amusement park ride that floated Hypnos’ gut up to his throat, where it hung without gravity. He hit the mattress with a thump and a quiet knock at the door. 

Hypnos’ eyes snapped open. Charon was gone, for how long, Hypnos didn’t know. The light from the window had shifted from morning, bright in the way that cast short shadows as the sun hung from its apex in the sky. Hovered over the house, it granted no light from Hypnos’ window and what was a soft morning rise had turned into an amber dark. 

Sticky sickness clung to his tongue, dry and slicked at the same time from having slept with it open. The scratch in his throat was deserving of a name. His arms folded loose in front of him, half dangled off the bed where his brother had been. 

The door creaked open and Hypnos saw the guard had changed. Thanatos stood in his door, wiping the expression of concern from his face. Trained in just the right ways to be soothing without demeaning. 

He was very good at his job. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just checking to see how you’re doing.” 

“Fine,” Hypnos rasped, trying to smile, trying to look fine. 

From Thanatos’ soft frown, he knew he failed. 

“My back hurts,” Hypnos complained, sitting up on his elbows. “And my hips. From lying down.” 

“Did you want to get up?” Thanatos asked. He stood in the middle of the room and managed to make it not look awkward. 

Hypnos nodded, feeling a resurgence of energy, just a small spark, but he clung to it. It helped him out of bed, Thanatos’ guiding him and letting Hypnos rest his weight against his side, and into his chair. The journey through the house was like moving through a forgotten dream, one where Hypnos had been before, but the details were too fuzzy to cling on to. In practiced motions he made his way to the sliding back door off the kitchen and out onto the porch, his chair thunking over the metal threshold and rumbling across freshly sealed wood. 

Sunlight prickled against sensitive pale skin through the spaces in the trees. Filtering through the green of leaves as the last gasps of summer still held fast to veridian. Shadows danced across his skin as the branches swayed in the heat soaked breeze. The bird trills that had been muted through glass cut through the air in distinct calls and added to the ambiance. 

Hypnos relaxed back in his chair, soaking it all in. 

The slide of the door along grooves, open then shut, as unique to summer as the warms on the back of Hypnos’ arms. Thanatos cleared his throat and tapped a plate on the side of Hypnos’ chair. Hypnos blinked his eyes open, already once again on the verge of sleep, to accept the offering. Toast with a generous smear of apricot jam. 

“Thanks Thanny,” Hypnos said. 

“Watch it,” Thanatos warned, a restrained smile on his lips. He pulled up a chair, dead leaves seated in the folds of a faded floral pattern. A salad in tupperware sat on his knees and he probed at it until he could get a full fork of banal lettuce. 

Hypnos chewed his toast gingerly, ignoring any scrape against his gums. 

Upset pains still pushing from just under his skin, but he clung to what little liveliness he had. Getting through lunch in the silence as the day slid into afternoon. The casual crunch of Thanatos’ red peppers and dry leaves. The wheat toast was just the right amount of crunchy, with a softness in the center, but enough to cause crumbs to dance down the front of Hypnos’ night shirt. Apricot chunks clung to the corner of his lips and smeared when he licked it clean. Steadily working his way through one before moving onto the other. A satisfied sigh that came from food settling into his stomach. A contented fullness and sweet taste on his tongue.

Hypnos’ skull fell back, heavy and weighed down, his arms going slack. The second piece of toast, a chunk shaped like the semi circle of teeth, hit the small plate with a tinny dance. The casual flutter of shadows ebbed behind his eyes, bursting in fireworks of color in the dark. The hushed sounds of cars rolling by in the distance turned down as Hypnos slowed. 

It was a blink and nothing more. 

Until the sickly sweet waft of cigarette smoke tickled his nose. Far away at a distance, but unmistakable all the same. The soft murmur of time had slipped and tripped along and Hypnos knew his blink was more than that. Gone was the plate from his lap and one brother swapped for the other. Charon leaned against the wooden rail of the porch. Sleeves rolled up and bare forearms threatened with splinters. A neon green ashtray sat perched on the flat of the rail, lumpy and misshapen. A gift from Hypnos to Charon when they knew he would be exiled to the outside with his new living arrangements. Spent butts were already snubbed in the center and Hypnos didn’t know if they were from that afternoon or prior. 

He lifted his head, sore from having been craned back. As he took stock once again, details of the strange way his body interacted with itself cropped up. His fingers just as stiff as his neck from lack of movement. The itch behind his eyelids from where the sun had kissed him. The pulsating thump in the back of his nose. 

An involuntary noise wheezed from him like a hand bellow, squeezed out like an empty tube of toothpaste. Charon turned at the noise, ready to give his brother all the attention he needed. 

“Hiya,” Hypnos tried to say but only half the word came out. He waved his hand, but only managed to flail.

Charon kindly waved back, cigarette perched between his fingers and trailing smoke. 

“I’m feeling better,” Hypnos said. Not wholly a lie. “Do you have to go back to work?” 

<done for the day> Charon said. <you’re stuck with me>

Laughter rattled Hypnos’ cage and shook his sternum, until Hypnos couldn’t tell if it was giggles or shivers. He curled in on himself, one hand to his chest to stop any further jangling that devolved into coughs that raked his lungs. Head ragdolled forward and Hypnos let defeat take him. He groaned, slow and low. 

Charon crouched down to the side, cigarette snuffed out in his gift ashtray, but still smelling like nicotine. He patiently waited for Hypnos’ attack to stop.

<inside?> he asked. 

“Please,” Hypnos said through another rattling cough. 

Hypnos preferred to move under his own power, choosing to push his wheelchair rather than have it pushed for him. The step up from porch into kitchen usually necessitated that he pop a wheelie, a trick he was particularly proud of, but his hands didn’t want to hold the wheels, his shoulders couldn’t configure under the strain. 

Charon pushed him up for him. 

The lights were off in the house, natural lighting still doing enough to create a clear visual through the straight shot path, but leaving the living room furniture nothing more than gray lumps edged in gold. Charon aimed Hypnos’ chair to his bedroom and the thought of laying back down in bed dropped a sickening acidic pit in his stomach. 

“Wanna hang out on the couch?” Hypnos asked, dropping his head back to smile up at Charon. 

Charon could see right through it. An offer, not a demand. He paused Hypnos’ wheelchair at the mouth of the hallway and moved no further, opting instead to scoop his brother up in his arms, feather light. Hypnos kicked his legs, enjoying the sensation of floating, his body finally matching the way his brain bobbed in his skull. Hypnos found himself wishing more than once that he no longer had to touch the ground. 

They settled on the couch and Charon turned on the television. 

An idle activity. A stark contrast from the way the rest of the Chthonic family seemed to operate. On the good days, Hypnos would have preferred to be at his desk, his pen languidly moving across the vellum, leaving behind clean marks on the page with an even hand. A wrist that didn’t sound like celery when he cocked it and fingers that didn’t complain when he gripped. 

Hypnos could barely make it through the commercial before he was once again out. Aware, this time, that sleep had claimed him so thoroughly. Falling to the side to rest on Charon’s shoulder, instantaneous boredom more than anything coaxing him back into slumber. 

It wasn't the door opening that stirred Hypnos, but instead the conversation. 

"How's he doing?"

There was a slight jostle as Charon answered and tried not to move at the same time. 

"How long has he been out?" 

A sharp huff came from Charon and he answered again. Whatever it was seemed to sate Thanatos enough that he stopped asking questions. The soft murmur of the television perfunctory as Hypnos waited on more conversation. What he got instead was soft footfalls on carpet pausing just behind the couch and a prod to his cheek. Smile growing as his skin was shoved against his teeth. 

"I can always tell when you're faking," Thanatos said. 

Hypnos kept his eyes closed, but he couldn't stop the grin, continuing to feign sleep. 

Not moving was doing him a world of good in that moment. 

Than pressed his cheek again, digging his finger in. 

“You can’t fool me,” Thanatos said with each poke. “I’ve seen you sleeping too many times to know what fake looks like, Hypnos.” 

“Conk shoo conk shoo,” Hypnos said. 

His shoulder pillow shook from Charon’s silent laughter, Hypnos’ head bouncing with each chuckle. 

Conceding to his farce, Hypnos finally cracked open an eye and looked up at his brothers. The stale taste on his tongue far too familiar for his liking and the crane of his neck ached in a pleasingly normal way. Another pain that wasn’t from his body betraying him, but rather Hypnos betraying his body. 

A stiffness like the crisp starch of a new shirt clung to his body. 

“I’m a little ripe,” he said. 

Thanatos leaned both his hands on the back of the couch. In the lowlight of the afternoon, he practically glowed. A halo forming in a ring around the shape of his head. 

“Need a bath?” he asked. 

The question wasn’t as banal as it sounded. An off the cuff inquiry on the direction of events, of how a typical evening for a normal household would go. Not ‘are you going to take a bath’ but instead ‘what needs to happen to get you into the bath.’ 

Hypnos preferred to tell him everything was fine. It was always two numbers down on the scale from what he felt. That he didn’t  _ need _ a bath. He could spend another day, two, five as he was. 

Thanatos waited patiently, for the truth or the lie. He would accept either and they both knew it. 

“Yeah,” Hypnos said slowly, letting the answer hang as limp as his motivation. 

Without any prompting, Charon slid out from underneath Hypnos and moved to lift him again. Whether it was to his chair or all the way to the bathroom, and as nice as it sounded, Hypnos held up a hand. 

“I’d like to walk all by myself if you don’t mind,” he said haughtily, over dramatic to make less of a deal than it was. 

Charon’s hands hovered for just a second, bracing in question, but he backed off when Hypnos heaved himself to his feet. 

Uncooperative legs wafted like jelly, detached from his body and yet he was somehow still aware. Shaking from lack of use more than anything. Somehow caught in the purgatory between sore and inert. Hypnos laughed, one hand firm on the cushion, upholstery bending into the five unique points like shoots from a star. If it was a joke, then it wasn’t a problem. 

Over his shoulder, he could practically feel the look his brothers shared. His caretakers. The people who bore his burden. Hypnos set that thought aside and unfurled his crackling spine to a stowed and upright position. Whatever silent conversation that happened over his head passed and Charon moved aside as if to go about his regular plans for the evening. 

The first step was a challenge. The second was more adjusted. By the third, the full complaint of his hips rang out. Hypnos laughed again, as if painfully creaking steps were the height of hilarity. He managed to round the couch and raised his chin to see Thanatos, still standing in the hallway entrance, watching with ultimate patience. 

He would never ask. 

“Help?” Hypnos did. 

“Sure.” 

They moved together in a well rehearsed dance. Thanatos ducking as Hypnos’ arm draped around his shoulders, a strong arm coming around his waist and coming to rest at Hypnos’ hip. Careful to not grip too tight. 

Hypnos set the pace. A three legged race between twins as they shuffled along. Past the chair that still waited for him, into the shadow of the hallway that would soon be pitch, and through the open door into the warm lights of Hypnos’ room. Faded with the rotation of the earth from wan daylight to insomniacs sallow nightlight. 

“Hey Than?” Hypnos asked. 

“Hm?” 

“Could you sing?” 

There was a pause in their steps and a side eyed glance. Thanatos wasn’t the greatest of singers, a virtuoso only to the showerhead. But Than was weak. A weakness Hypnos knew exactly how to exploit and attempted not to wield the power so carelessly. 

It had been a long day. 

Hypnos smiled with teeth, eyes wide and batting, knowing exactly whose buttons he was pressing. Than rolled his eyes, hiked his brother on his hip, and headed to the bathroom. 

“Lean on me,” he sang, almost a near monotone. “When you’re not strong.”

The drone of the bathroom vent groaned as it came to life, the fan grinding to full attention, ready to attack the steam that would come to dominate the master bathroom. It overtook Thanatos’ voice, working hard to cover him up, but leaned against his shoulder, Hypnos could hear every syllable. 

“And I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on.” 

One handed, Than clicked open the door to the walk in bathtub, all clean and waiting. The next steps to their dance came naturally and Than hooked his fingers under Hypnos’ shirt. 

“For. It won’t be long,” he sang as he pulled the days old shirt up over Hypnos’ head. “Till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.” 

“You just call on me brother, when you need a hand.” Hypnos was a far better singer than Thanatos, but still nowhere near good. It wasn’t hard to top Than in that particular category. “We all need somebody to lean on.” 

Hypnos rested one hand on Thanatos’ shoulder, putting almost all his weight on it. Pants supported by an elastic band slipped over slim hips easily enough, dropping to the ground and leaving Hypnos in his skivvies. Stepping out of them took more care and Thanatos’ bracing hands at his elbows. 

“I just might have a problem that you'll understand,” Thanatos sang. 

“We all need somebody to lean on,” Hypnos responded to the call and pressed his head against Than’s shoulder. “I think I got it from here.” 

“You sure?” Thanatos asked. 

“Mmhmm.” Hypnos nodded.

“Alright.” Than let go and Hypnos was left to stand under his own power. He stepped backwards from the bathroom, taking the door with him. “I’m going to put your chair outside the door. Have a good bath, try not to sleep.” 

“Thank you Thanny Bananny,” Hypnos said. 

Than stuck his head back in through the door, stern and oh so serious, one solid finger pointed at his brother. 

“You better not,” he said. 

Hypnos laughed as the door clicked closed. Alone in his bathroom, it was safe to let the smile drop and let the weight finally fall heavy against his body, shoving him firmly into the gravity well of a black hole. Instead, the little brevity his brothers provided kept him aloft long enough to get into the tub. He sat in place, stripped bare, and turned the water on. 

Luke warm swell swirled around his legs, creeping and crawling up his skin until it cupped his thighs. Dancing in an intricate line up the shape of his ribs and under his chest. Until high enough that Hypnos could switch on the jets. A massaging repeated pressure that soothed stiff limbs. A luxury that had been afforded through his brothers’ means. 

Hypnos slid back into the warmth, content with how fortunate he was. 

He did not fall asleep, per se, just closed his eyes for a second. But when the doorbell rang and he opened them again, his fingers had pruned. From his place in the house, he could just make out the quick prattle from the front door and switched off the jets. Even under the overhead vent that had tried so valiantly to prevent the mirrors from fogging over, Hypnos could still recognize Hermes’ voice. 

He drained the tub, grabbed the bathrobe that was perpetually hung close, and draped it around his shoulders. The trail of bath mats led him to the bedroom door and he plopped down into his chair. Never entirely cleaned, but feeling refreshed, Hypnos poked his head outside. 

“You’re overreacting,” Thanatos said. 

<thats rich, coming from you> Charon said. A bouquet of flowers was tucked under his arm, Elysium Nursery’s logo printed on the paper wrapping.

Than leaned under the counters and whispered a quiet  _ ‘a-ha’ _ before coming back up with a white opaque vase. 

“He’s harmless,” Thanatos said. “You’re being paranoid.”

Charon smacked the flowers down on the counter. A few petals fell free and a card skidded out from among stems. Thanatos glared down at them before flicking the silent accusation to his older brother. 

<there is an ulterior motive here> he said. 

That seemed to stop Thanatos. He stopped, clearly lost in thought, hands poised around the vase. He looked away, as if considering something. His brow furrowed as he came to the same conclusions Charon had, not quite liking what he found.

“Hm. . .” Thanatos hummed.

Hypnos pushed his door open wider and his chair through the door. In a rare moment of uncanny familial resemblance, Charon and Thanatos both turned, sharp and sudden. The quick blank faces as they reacclimated to the tender needs of a bad day. Ready to feed, to fix, to heal, to sing, to care take as they needed to. 

Hypnos pushed it aside, rejuvenated to not be sick, but just be brother. 

“Which agenda is hidden where?” he asked. 

“You got flowers,” Thanatos said quickly. 

Charon shot him a glare.

“I. . . what?” Hypnos asked. He laughed, like Than had said a joke. 

“Yeah,” Thanatos said. He picked up the card from the counter, stiff paper clipping against the granite, and held it out. A small thing, no larger than a business card, with a handwritten scrawl jammed into the small space.

_ Hope things are well, Hypnos. Thought I’d say hello cause you’re on my mind. _

_ -Zag _

Hypnos held the card between his thumb and finger, running the pads along the sharp edges. Zagreus had been in just a couple of days ago. He was nice. He’d always been nice. And kind. The quality of kindness that he didn’t really notice was missing until it popped up again. 

Until a bouquet showed up for him. 

He looked to the flowers spilled out over the table. An arrangement of pale pink, petals folded in over one another, curled up into a soft cup among a sea of pastel green. More leaves then flower, arranged with consideration from a professional hand. 

Picked out and sent to Hypnos. 

From Zagreus. 

“Huh,” Hypnos said. “Well isn’t that neat.” 

“Yeah, we were just going to put them into a vase,” Thanatos said with a sharp look. “Isn’t that right Charon?”

Charon huffed once at his younger brother, not bothering to disguise the disdain he held, but still dutifully turning to do as he was told. He snatched up the bouquet in a angry rustle and began peeling off the paper. 

Hypnos’ evening turned into a yawn. One motion moving dreamily into another as his body began to remember itself. The actions of the day had ebbed away the sting in his throat and the ache behind his eyes, but with stillness it returned. With clarity of consciousness, it once again demanded his focus. 

Hypnos pressed a thumb to the center of his head. 

“Painkiller?” 

The offer was tentative. It always was. A use once, nuclear bomb that even then didn’t eradicate all the irritants that ran rampant through his system, leaving only behind a fallout and a worry. Saved for days that were not just rainy but hail and sleet and horizontal.

Hypnos pried one eye open to look up at Thanatos. 

“No,” he said through a smile. “Not tonight.” 

Worry tried not to play its way on the edges of Thanatos, not after it had dominated him, but it still crept in at weakened moments. 

“I think I’m just going to go to bed,” Hypnos said, hoping he might be able to sleep and that the agony would let him stay as such. 

Thanatos paused, letting the trust for his brother settle, before nodding. 

“Let us know if you need anything, okay?” he said. 

“Always do,” Hypnos sang and wheeled backwards into his room. 

Hypnos had managed himself into fresh clothing and nestled back into the plush open arms of his bed, staring up at the blinking lights of his canopy dancing in fairy motes that he had arranged haphazardly among the gauze. Taunting in dim illumination that highlighted the details in the mesh. On his back once again and for the first time that day, sleep was nowhere to be found. 

A new and frustrated pain hit behind his eyes. Alone in the dark, listening to the quiet murmur and shuffle of the house outside, Hypnos allowed himself a moment of selfish self pity. He curled his fingers tight around the comforter that had been pulled to his chin, a frown only shared with himself drawing the corners of his mouth tight. 

It was cruel. The way his body played tricks on him like that. Kept him asleep, kept him awake, kept him immobile. How he seemingly couldn’t have one good day without five bad behind it. 

Hypnos breathed in deep, allowing for his moment where he could be bitter. 

It didn’t last long as the door opened again. Hallway light spilling in over the carpet and up the walls int a bifurcated silhouette of yellow. Blocked as suddenly as it came by the harrowing shadow of his older brother, giant and slouching to get under the door. In his hands, the shape of flora, sprouting out of a voluptuous vase. 

He entered without asking, resting the flowers down at the edge of Hypnos’ magpie desk. A corner where there wasn’t paper, pencil, ink, or other. Charon turned it, the ceramic singing a soft murmur against the wood, until the largest flower was poised in Hypnos’ direction. He returned to Hypnos’ bedside, kneeling down on one knee. A large hand, adorned with rings, cupped the back of Hypnos’ head and Charon pressed his forehead to the top, in a quiet moment of reverence. 

<can’t sleep?> he asked. 

“Not yet,” Hypnos said, allowing himself to be quiet and small in front of his very much bigger brother. 

<do you want a sleeping pill?>

Hypnos thought on it. 

“. . . not yet,” he said. 

Charon believed him, and he always would. 

<goodnight Hypnos>

He gave a solemn nod and rose back to his feet, leaving Hypnos behind in the dark with his illuminations and his lights and his blankets and his flowers. 

Hypnos rolled onto his side, the pressure shooting up in a dull thud up his hip and to his ribs. His brain sloshed to the side, settling against the curve of his skull where it beat its timpani once more. He looked through the soft curve of his canopy at the floral display on his desk. The jump of his lights created new and fascinating shapes in the petals, stunted leaves jutting out turned long front a different angle. 

Hypnos smiled when no one was around to see it. 

The day had been bad, but tomorrow. 

Tomorrow might be better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theres only so much research can tell me. If I got anything wrong, please let me know. 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	18. Night Out - Zag & Than & Meg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zagreus introduces his friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 3 gays walk into a bar. . .

Even before they entered, Zagreus could hear Thanatos grumbling. 

“One hour,” Zagreus promised. “Thats all I ask.” 

“Thats a big ask, Zag,” Thanatos spoke in his usual monotone. 

“Seriously Than, do you go out at all?” 

“I do.” 

“Okay.” Zagreus paused at the door, one hand on the handle. “When was the last time?” 

Thanatos glared at Zagreus, brow furrowed and frown tight. He looked off to the side, up to the night sky, and counted in his head. 

“College,” he said. 

“And that was how many years ago?” Zagreus asked, not bothering to mask his amusement. 

“Just open the door, Zagreus.” 

Saturday night was hardly the best time for a quiet sit down, but it was the only time Zagreus managed to drag his workaholic friends to some form of a social setting. The bar was packed, too loud and too warm and with little room to sit. A live band played in the corner and dominated the room, but what song was playing, Zagreus couldn’t say. It clashed with the cacophonous volume of the bar. The crowd filled up the space like a sea of bodies, grouped into their own eddies that Zagreus had to swirl around. 

He saw the gargantuan woman seated at the bar, her high ponytail signaling like a sail over the ocean. 

“Meg!” Zagreus called out over the crowd, not expecting her to hear. Still, she turned. At recognizing her friend, she raised one hand, face impassive as she always was. 

Zagreus took Thanatos by the hand and dragged him through the crowd, his continued complaints going unheard. 

“Hey how you doing?” Zag shouted. 

Meg said something, but he couldn’t quite hear it. He dragged Thanatos in front of him, presenting his best friend like it was show and tell. 

“Meg, Than. Than, Meg,” Zagreus said and watched his worlds collide. 

There was a moment of stark silence between the two of them where Zagreus’ seemingly apathetic friends sized one another up. Thanatos was the first to hold out his hand, going into what Zagreus assume was his customer service mode. 

“Nice to meet you,” he said. 

“You as well,” Meg said, giving one and only one firm shake of his hand. “Want a seat?” 

“Sure.” Than took the only seat next to her at the bar, leaving Zagreus to look around and not find another. He shoved his hands into his pockets, content with his lot in standing. 

“So uh, Meg is my friend from college,” Zagreus tried to explain. “She works as a trainer at Tartarus. And Than here is my friend from high school. He’s a funeral director at Styx Funeral Home.” 

“Well isn’t that interesting,” Meg said. 

“It can be,” Thanatos said and signalled for the bartender.

He ordered for Zagreus, asking what he wanted and ignoring the way Zagreus insist he pay. Meg eyed Than’s vodka seltzer, but otherwise said nothing. 

“So how were you unfortunate to meet this living disaster?” Meg asked, tilting her beer towards Zagreus. 

“Hey!” 

“He forced friendship on me,” Thanatos said. 

“Hey!!” 

“You too huh?” Meg laughed into her beer. “One day I was minding my own business, the next thing I knew there was this person just following me around.” 

“You didn’t seem to mind.” Zagreus said, leaning on the bar between them. 

“You were relentless,” she said. 

“Sat next to me in algebra,” Thanatos said. “He cheated off me.” 

“I did not!” 

“Exercise physiology,” Meg said. “He forced me to be his partner for the whole semester.” 

“I did not force anything! I asked, you agreed!” 

“Did he hit on you too?” Meg asked. 

Thanatos laughed and gave Zagreus a sad sort of look. Like a sweet animal to be pitied. 

“Zag, you did not,” Thanatos kept laughing. 

“I thought it was a good idea,” Zag complained, sliding down the bar and leaning his hand up into his hair. “I mean, she’s pretty and all.” 

“And barking up the way wrong tree there champ,” Meg said and pat his back. 

“I didn’t know!” Zag said. 

“How?” Thanatos asked. 

“He probably has the worst gaydar I’ve ever seen,” Meg said. 

“Wait.” Zagreus popped up quickly. “You can tell?” 

Thanatos gave his friend an even stare. He glanced his eyes to Meg then back to Zagreus again. 

“Yes,” he said. “Mostly.” 

“And how long did it take for him to know about you?” Meg asked. 

“Wait!” Zagreus held up his hands. “Wait wait wait wait. Than?” 

Thanatos held out a presenter style hand to Zagreus, brows raised. 

“Now, apparently,” he said. 

_ “You’re gay!?” _ Zagreus squawked. 

“Wow, say it a little louder, would you Zag?” 

Meg laughed, leaning back in her stool and tilting her head. A melodic sound that never rose above speaking level, husky with a slight rasp. 

“Do you think I went to those wrestling matches of yours for my health?” Thanatos said, taking a long sip of his perfectly clear drink that smelled like paint thinner. 

“. . . what?” Zagreus said quietly. 

Thanatos shrugged with one shoulder nonchalantly. 

“You were hot, Zagreus,” he said. 

“You mean I could’ve had a hot boyfriend this whole time?” Zagreus whined. 

Thanatos slowly turned his head to give his friend a bland expression that spoke more volumes than words ever could. 

“You know what I mean,” Zagreus said, throwing up a hand. 

“Wow,” Meg said slowly. 

Zagreus slumped low on the bar again, resting his chin on the wood, and nearly bumping into the too close person behind him. 

“Why are you both so mean to me?” he asked. 

“Because you make it so easy,” Meg said, still rubbing circles on his back. 

Zagreus sulked, picking at the wet beer bottle label with its incredibly lacking adhesive. He tapped his shoe on the ground, ignoring the beat of the drum that drowned out any melody in a room not conducive for percussive acoustics. 

“Well I’m bi,” he said. 

“We know,” both Than and Meg said at the same time. Giants on either side of him. 

Zagreus’ jaw jut out further. 

“You’re not exactly subtle,” Thanatos said. 

“I’ll say,” Meg said. “Hows that latest crush of yours going?” 

Zagreus stood up again, both hands pressing against the rounded curve of the bar. He wanted to glare daggers at his friend, but the sudden leaping thud of his heart made anything but stark cold fear impossible. 

“Meg,” he said as a warning. 

“Have you heard about this?” Meg asked, leaning past Zagreus to speak conspiratorially with Thanatos. “This guy he’s been going on and on about.” 

Zagreus slapped his hand over Meg’s mouth, feeling her ramble continue behind muffling fingers. 

“I know,” Thanatos said. 

That, more than anything, sent a painful chill through Zagreus’ veins. Too terrified to look at his friend, but too scared not to, Zagreus turned. Thanatos stared straight ahead, face as cool and impassive as ever, and took another sip of his drink. 

“You do?” he asked. 

“You’re not subtle,” Thanatos repeated. 

Meg grabbed Zagreus by the wrist and pulled his hand away. 

“Whats going on here?” she asked. 

“Hypnos is my brother,” Thanatos explained. 

“Oooh,” Meg said. She side eyed Zagreus. “You sure know how to pick them.” 

“Than,” Zagreus said slowly, far more interested in his friend’s reaction. 

The ill advised years long crush on Hypnos had been something Zagreus felt best to keep to himself for multiple reasons. One of which was his friendship with Thanatos. The wedge it might drive between them, the awkwardness that might form. He didn’t want to ruin what he had with Than and it contributed to Zagreus’ not so secret secret. 

Recently, one more factor had added to Zagreus’ hesitance. 

Thanatos had become very protective of his brother. Incredibly protective. The quiet fretting and bustling about the Chthonic home signalled more to Zagreus what Thanatos’ priorities had become. A strange detachment where Hypnos’ needs came before his own. 

Zagreus didn’t want to toe that line, let alone cross it. 

Thanatos snorted into his drink. 

“I think Charon wants to kill you,” he said. “I’m pretty sure Charon wants to kill you.” 

“And you?” Zagreus asked sheepishly. 

Thanatos sighed heavily and set down his glass. He nursed it between his hands, twisting it this way and that, leaving rings on the wood. The band stopped between songs and the deafening silence rang heavy in Zagreus’ ears. He waited, holding his breath, watching the soft droop of Thanatos’ contemplative eyes. 

“I was,” he said slowly. “Upset. At first. It was a knee jerk reaction. More worry for Hypnos, nothing against you.” 

He waved his hand to reassure Zagreus and Zagreus nodded, accepting the explanation, eager on Than to continue. 

“But,” Thanatos said and Zagreus hung on the word. “I suppose. Hypnos deserves some happiness. And you do too.” 

Thanatos drummed his fingers, his nails tinking across the glass. 

“I’m not exactly okay with it,” he said. “But if it had to be someone, I’m glad its you. I trust you.” 

He smiled at Zagreus. 

“You have my blessing,” he said. 

A joyous buzz that had nothing to do with alcohol coursed through Zagreus. He tried to hold back a smile and failed. He couldn’t think of the right words to say, how to properly thank Thanatos, and instead leaned forward to press his forehead against Than’s shoulder, listening to his friend laugh. 

“Gay,” Meg said. 

Thanatos felt comfortable enough to give her a sharp rap on her shoulder and it only added to Zagreus’ elation. Friends becoming friends. He knew they’d get along. 

“So how about you Meg?” Zagreus said, sitting and turning devious attention to her. “You got anyone?” 

“In this town?” Meg scoffed. “The dating scene is abysmal. Paltry at best and what is out there is. . . unsavory.” 

“Or you’re just picky,” Zagreus said. 

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be?” Meg said. 

“What you need is to be set up,” Zagreus said with too much confidence. Ignoring any rebuttal from Meg, he turned to Thanatos, head whipping from one friend to the next. “Do you know any single lesbian or bisexual or whatever ladies?"

Thanatos looked up to the ceiling in thought, rapping his nails again. 

“Zagreus,” Meg warned. “You can’t just–” 

“Yeah,” Thanatos said ponderously slow. “Yeah I think I know someone.” 

“You think?” Zagreus asked excitedly. 

“Pretty sure.” Thanatos smiled and Zagreus ignored the balk from Meg behind him. “She’s cute too.” 

“What would you know about cute, pretty boy?” Meg asked dangerously. 

Thanatos leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbow. 

“She’s. Cute,” he said reassuringly. 

Meg ground her jaw and even in the low light of the bar, Zagreus could make out the dusting of a blush across her cheeks. Zagreus clapped his hands once. 

“Its settled then,” he said. “Is your friend available on Tuesday?” 

“She could be,” Thanatos said. 

“How do you know if I’m free?” Meg snarled. 

“I have your schedule,” Zagreus said idly. “How do you think I arranged this? Now Than–”

“Nope,” Thanatos cut him off before he could chase that thought any further. 

They ended up staying well longer than an hour. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: cute girl to hook Meg up with is Dusa :3 
> 
> Flexing my dialogue chops. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	19. Sick - Thanatos & ensemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos gets a cold

A great pressure pressed between his eyes. His throat felt distinctly like the color red. When he dry swallowed, he felt that same pain in his ears. A swampy sickly layer of sweat coated his skin, a reaction to the heat and causing a chill. One nostril was clogged. More than anything, all of it annoyed him. 

Daylight seeping in from the main rooms pierced directly into his skull. Thanatos hissed and held up a hand in an effort to block it. The limb was made of lead and struggled to rise. 

The morning had already proven to be a great effort, the will to get out of bed a struggle. Thanatos had skipped over his morning exercises. He _never_ missed morning exercise. But the mere act of brushing his teeth with his lead arms was far more difficult than it had been the day before. 

He walked out into the main room, already hearing the sounds of breakfast. Hypnos going on about the vivid dream he had the night before and something sizzling from the stove where Charon stood vigilant. 

Thanatos wished he could smell it. 

He shuffled over the ceramic tile and heard all conversation stop. 

“Morning,” he said, voice stuffed and sounding like a yawn. It wasn’t his normal timbre and he half questioned who said it. 

Thanatos attempted to navigate the kitchen and it took him a moment and bumping into the counter to realize his eyes were still closed. He opened them, feeling crust clinging to his eyelashes in an attempt to keep them sealed. Through haze fuzzed eyes, Thanatos managed to find the coffee pot, but missed the handle on his first try. He got it on the second, but realized he had no mug. 

“Hey Than?” Hypnos’ muted voice rumbled thick and underwater. “Are you doing okay?”

Thanatos’ body wobbled as he slowly turned in place, each step a plodding effort. Coffee pot in hand like a weapon, he peered down at his brother. From the way his nose scrunched up in an effort to keep snot in place, he was sure it came off as a sneer. 

“Are you sick?” Hypnos asked, laughter burbling under the question. 

“What?” Thanatos asked, half out of incredulity and half out of confused clarification. 

“I said, are you–” 

A large hand came to encapsulate Thanatos’ forehead and basically covered up his eyes. As quickly as it came it left, leaving Charon with a look of shocked disbelief. Thanatos stared up at his older brother, looking so much further away in a queer telescoping effect. He took the coffee pot away from Thanatos. 

Thanatos sniffled once, harder than intended and it rocked his brain. He stumbled back a step. 

“I’m not. . .” The tickling build up of a sneeze crawled up his nose and he waited for it to arrive. It never came and Thanatos sighed in defeat. “Sick.” 

“So you’re just making a fashion statement then?” Hypnos asked, draping one arm over the back of his chair.

“Huh?” 

Hypnos nodded his head towards Thanatos’ midsection and Thanatos took the moment to look down. His button down was off by one or maybe two buttons. Half of it was tucked into his pants, the other half dangling free. His belt was still undone. He was wearing one sock. 

“Oh,” Thanatos said and began to rework the buttons. The bones in his fingers didn’t move as he wanted them to, wiggling instead like jelly. 

Charon’s hands moved just outside of Thanatos’ periphery and his head lolled to look at his brother. 

“What was that?” he asked and sniffed again. 

“He said go back to bed,” Hypnos said. 

Thanatos waved Charon off, finally getting one button undone. He had to practically pry at the button and the force of his fingers broke the tortoiseshell decoration from its spot on his shirt. It bounced off the far wall. Thanatos stared at it slack jawed, not quite comprehending what had just happened. 

“You’re a walking petri dish,” Hypnos said. “You’re gonna bring cholera part two to the Home?” 

“I am not–” The sneeze that had failed earlier made its appearance in a succession of three then four then tripping its way to a stuttering five. 

Hypnos reared back from his place at the table, holding his fingers up in a cross. 

“Charon!” he shouted. “Quarantine patient zero!” 

“I am not–!” 

Thanatos did not get the opportunity to finish his thought when he was so indignantly lifted from the ground. His stomach hit Charon’s shoulder, nearly knocking the wind out of him, and Thanatos’ raw throat wheezed like bellows. He watched with fascination as the floor shifted from tile to rug to the threshold of his room. 

“Wait!” Thanatos said, finally figuring out what was going on. “Wait I’m not sick! Put me down!” 

Charon did as he was told and dropped Thanatos ass first into his unmade bed. He barely had time to register the tilt-a-whirl nature of his bedroom before he was pushed back into the pillows. 

"Charon!" Thanatos protested, kicking off his blankets. "Charon, I'm fi–" 

Another series of violent sneezes raked over Thanatos' body and juddered his ribs. 

". . .ne," he concluded. 

Thanatos went to leave his bed when he was promptly hit square in the face with a set of sweats and a t-shirt. He pulled them down and was greeted with the blurry visage of his older brother.

<i'll know if you come to work> Charon said. 

Thanatos wanted to fight back, but the effort of a retort proved to be too great. Instead, he huffed in frustration. 

<stay in bed or I'll make you> Charon threatened. 

His bedroom door closed, leaving the room lit by only the sickly orange light of the morning seeping through his blinds. Thanatos flopped back onto the bed with a groan and waited for the world to stop spinning.

____

Thanatos was in the middle of his third fever dream when there was a knock at his door. It sounded suspiciously like the one he would give when coming to check on Hypnos. His dream provided him with the very real imagery of coming to knock on Hypnos' door, a confidence about the act that he hadn't worn since those first few months after the accident.

A door opened but it wasn't Hypnos'. The sting of halfway light draping over the back of Thanatos' eyelids brought forth a quiet hiss. 

"Than?" 

“What is it?” Thanatos slurred on a scratchy throat. 

A bowl nestled in two oven mit clad hands poked in through the open crack in the door. Steam danced from the top of it in a visible wisp that moved like a belly dancer. A curly haired shape followed the soup. 

“I made you some soup,” Hypnos said from behind a face mask. It wasn’t designed for medical care and Thanatos recognized it as left over from when they painted the house. The plastic face shield was stolen from the gear Charon would sometimes bring home. The effect of which made him look closer to a muppet than a human. 

“What do you need?” Thanatos asked, ready to help his brother, despite the way his body was suddenly comprised completely of sand bags. 

“I made soup,” Hypnos said, holding the bowl higher. 

The grinding gears of Thanatos’ mind were gunked up with mucus and he wondered how he was supposed to help with soup. The door opened up a little wider and Hypnos groaned as he clambered out of his chair. 

“Ah, d–” Thanatos succumbed to a violent coughing vit, hiding his face in his sleeve, ribs rattling with each expulsion. The last one turned into a sneeze. 

“Boy, you sure are determined to not get better,” Hypnos said. 

He had duct taped the oven mits underneath raincoat sleeves, dressed in a facsimile of a uniform meant for intensive sterile care. The bowl sang a soft ceramic noise as it slid down onto Thanatos’ side table. Hypnos reached into the raincoat pocket and dug out two painkillers, placing them next to the water bottle that had gone wholly ignored in Thanatos’ sleep. 

“You just eat this when you’re good and ready, okie dokie?” Hypnos pat Thanatos on the head, leaning over comically in an attempt to maintain a good distance. 

“You made this?” Thanatos asked, weak hand reaching out from underneath the blanket and touching the edge of the bowl. “For me?” 

“Mmhmm!” Hypnos slapped his hands at his sides like a penguin, nodding proudly at his achievements. 

Hypnos wasn’t known for his proficiency in the kitchen, the froot loop casserole would probably never be forgotten, but the soup in the bowl looked perfectly normal. This broth that looked easy to swallow, a deep red color with what looked like flakes of flavor sprinkled throughout. 

Thanatos put in the effort to sit up in bed, a find sheen of sweat making his shirt stick to his back and his hair to his brow. He rested the bowl in his lap and took a loud noisy slurping spoonful of the soup. 

Thanatos couldn’t taste a thing. It wasn’t that the soup was bland, he was sure of that, but a coating on his tongue, the clog in his nose, prevented any and all flavor from coming in. He took another sip, the heat comforting on his ragged throat and a tingle tickling pleasantly in the back of his nose. 

Hypnos stood in the center of Thanatos’ room, eyes darting back and forth from the bowl to Thanatos. Thanatos slowly side eyed his brother. 

“Is it spicy enough?” he asked. 

Thanatos stopped. He could barely keep his eyes open and his lids hung heavy at half mast. The spoon sat at his lips and he let it fall back into the soup with a little _splish_.

“Oh uh, yeah,” Thanatos said. “Yeah its real spicy.” 

He couldn’t fully see Hypnos’ face but Hypnos had a tendency to frown with his whole body. 

“I put like six peppers in there,” he whined. 

Thanatos watched carefully as he scooped up another spoonful of broth. The bowl was close that the steam wafted up into his face and stung his eyes. His vision swirled but he managed to get the next mouthful in. 

“Ow,” he said blandly. “Very spicy. It–” 

Thanatos devolved into more coughing that had nothing to do with the scoville rating of his soup. Broth spilled out onto his sheets in little droplets, but through the rattling in his sternum he couldn’t seem to conjure up the energy to care. 

“Spicy,” he rasped through the wheezes. 

“I’m going to go get more peppers,” Hypnos said, scuttling out of Thanatos’ room. 

A complaint died on his lips. That Hypnos didn't have to, that he should at least get back in his chair, move it out of the hallway. That he didn't need to take care of Thanatos.

Thanatos was unused to being under someone's care. It felt unnatural to him, being in this end. 

He looked down at the soup, cupped between his hands, and he rotated the bowl, watching the broth swish back and forth like a wave pool. The flakes within, no doubt pepper flakes and seeds from poorly prepared peppers, danced with the circular motion. 

Thanatos indulged in being taken care of. He smiled and took another sip, drinking from the edge of the bowl. 

It really did soothe the throat. 

____

Hermes found Thanatos slumped low on the couch. A blanket was draped over his shoulders, a king with his fealty of used paper tissues lined in neat rows on the coffee table. The box from whence they came sat empty in his lap. A bottle of near black liquid and a label of a skull and crossbones that read "Death Nectar" on it sat in a limp grip. Wearing a shirt that read _His And_ followed by an image of a hearse. He didn't react when Hermes walked in, only continued to stare glassy eyed and slack jawed at the tv screen. 

Hermes watched the zombie for any signs of life.

". . . Hey."

Thanatos' sticky eyes slid from the screen to the open door that Hermes stood in. He made a soft grunting noise that may have been an attempt at human communication, but was far too stuffed up to be decipherable. The free hand flopped once in his lap, landing ineffectually at his side and taking a corner of his comforter cape with it. It could've been a wave hello, a shoo away, or a feeble attempt to flip Hermes off. 

"Damn what's gotten into you?" Hermes asked, closing the door. 

"Cold," Thanatos said, mostly around the snot in his face. 

"Yeah and did a bus hit you too?" 

Thanatos laughed, his body hiccuping at the movement, and Hermes knew something was wrong with him. The man didn't have an inch of humor in his body.

"Anyways," Hermes said, voice pitching high. "Is your brother home?" 

"Which one?" Thanatos asked. 

Hermes gave him a blank, flat stare. 

"The one I'm shtupping." 

Thanatos' brow furrowed and he could catch flies with that open maw of his. He had such a carefully constructed control of his appearance all the way down to the practiced sneer of disdain that he managed to make look attractive. A trait no doubt inherited from his mother. Stupified, hair poking out at odd angles, and just a little damp, seeing Thanatos without his facade was just a little entertaining. 

Just a little. 

Hermes curled his lips in to prevent laughter from seeping out. 

"Hypnos is asleep," Thanatos said, pointing to the closed doors. 

"An attempt was made, chief," Hermes said. He folded his arms over the back of the couch and gazed idly at the tv screen. A neat frown pulled at his lips.

Thanatos settled back into the couch cushions and took a swig of the Death Nectar straight from the bottle. His mouth looked a little swollen from the abuse and his eyes watered, but he otherwise didn't react. 

"Hey Than?" Hermes asked carefully. 

"It clears the sinuses," Thanatos explained, waving the little bottle in the air, his clogged voice clearly portraying that it did nothing of the sort. 

"No no not that," Hermes said, waving him off. He pointed a stern finger at the screen. "Are you watching spanish soap operas?" 

The bright colors of daytime tv danced across the screen, fuzzed over with an amber filter to give it a soft dreamy glow that only best suited cheap drama. An attempt to look like luxury. Two women argued with one another, both dressed and made up in exquisite beauty, hair gleaming and adorned in garish eye shadow. They yelled over each other, quick and clipped. 

"Mmhmm," Thanatos hummed and took another swig. 

"Do you even know what's going on?" Hermes asked, eyes not leaving the screen. 

"Well," Thanatos said with a long suffering sigh that was usually reserved for his brothers. "Mateo is cheating on Isabella with her long list twin brother Nicolás, which good for Nick. And that's Raquel who died three episodes ago, but was cloned by a random doctor in a cave somewhere so this is her clone, although I suspect it's the same woman." 

"Yeah pretty sure they get the same actress to play her clone," Hermes said flatly. 

"No I'm not that sick–" Thanatos said before he was cut off by a half sneeze. "I mean that's probably Raquel. She didn't die and is just pretending to be her own clone." 

"Aaah," Hermes said slowly. 

His eyes slid over to the lump on the couch, more blanket than man, seeing more than ever the tentative resemblance between him and his twin. His brows rose slowly at the new information he was processing about the stick up his ass brother who seemed to more interesting than previously thought. 

"¿Tú hablas español?" Hermes asked

"Sí." 

"¿Desde cuando?!"

Thanatos shivered through his sweat and pulled the fallen blanket up around his shoulder again. In a truly Hypnosian move, he nestled deeper into its warmth and slumped lower into the plush couch cushions. 

"Para ayudar en la funeraria," he muttered and sniffed violently. He went for another tissue and his hand hit the bottom of the box where it promptly got stuck.

Hermes drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. 

"Prepararé palomitas."

_____

Charon entered his home in much the same way Hermes had: stalled in the doorway, bewildered at the scene on the couch. 

<you're going to get sick>

Hermes pressed a harsh finger to his lips and shushed his boyfriend. Charon's face skewed into an indignant frown, brows pressed into a near perfect line. 

<when have I ever gotten sick> Hermes said, jostling the sleeping man resting on his shoulder. 

The litter on the coffee table had multiplied. A second tissue box has been procured and the small waste bin that lived next to Hypnos' craft bench had been commandeered for the used tissues. A large bowl was empty save for the layer of salt on the bottom and a few kernels. Thanatos' hot sauce bottle had been capped and placed far away, replaced with a bottle of Nyquil, it's plastic measuring cup lay on it's side next to the bottle, green viscous liquid pooled on the side and threatening to dribble out on the veneer. Hermes sat with remote in hand, the television having been changed from telenovela to soccer, muted and flashing colors across his skin in the dark.. Thanatos slumped over, his face pressed to Hermes' shoulder, cheek distorted as he slowly fell down his arm. 

Charon huffed, knowing Hermes was right, and closed the door before any chill could seep in. 

"I forced him to take cold meds," Hermes whispered. "He's out like a light, but he says the funniest shit in his sleep, here listen." 

Hermes roughly jerked the shoulder Thanatos lay on and his head popped up. 

"Omega 3 fatty acids," he slurred, slowly lowering back down to Hermes' shoulder. "Good for your heart."

Hermes didn't give him much time to rest before he shrugged violently again. Once more, Thanatos sat upright again, eyes still closed and fast asleep. 

"Lumbering is dangerous work," he muttered from dreamland, falling back down to his human pillow like a fall leaf on the window. 

"See?" Hermes smiled broadly. 

<stop that> Charon said, hanging his hat at the door. He walked around the couch and rested his hand on Thanatos' forehead, pulling him back against the couch. 

"Don't forget your lunchbox," he slurred. 

Charon was far more pleased with what he felt than he had been that morning. 

Hermes switched off the tv, the clicking of a mechanisms inside and a high pitched whine was loud in the dead silence of the living room, leaving them draped in darkness and acclimating to unprepared night vision. Deeper in the house was the scratching of Hypnos' illumination and a soft light peeked from under the crack in his door. 

Charon carefully stepped around the couch, dancing over tissues that hadn't quite made it into the bin, and scooped his infirmed brother into his arms. Thanatos curled up in his arms, smaller and more childlike than he had been in his waking day to day. He coughed in his sleep. 

<watch out or you'll get sick> Hermes teased. 

Charon spared his boyfriend an annoyed glare before carrying his brother back to bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I like Hermes saying shtupping 
> 
> 2) I'm running on 2 years of high school spanish and google translate PLEASE TELL ME IF I GOT ANYTHING WRONG I'M BEGGING YOU 
> 
> 3) Thanatos has two modes of flavor: bland and HOTTER THAN THE SURFACE OF THE SUN
> 
> 4) everything sleeping than says comes from Alan Wake shadow monsters 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	20. The Body - Charon/Hermes HEAVY ANGST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A body comes in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CONTENT WARNING:  
>  DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF EMBALMING PROCESS  
> THEMES OF DEATH**
> 
> I am begging you, please take heed of these warnings, there is a lot going on with this one

Charon stood above the body bag, half unzipped, the sound of it's scissoring teeth still sharp in his ears. Time had slowed. He waited for common sense to start. 

The body on his slab was a man, died too early of cancer, fresh from the hospital. Charon had his name, had his photos of when he was smiling and happy, had the knowledge of what cancer patients often looked like, but he still hadn't been prepared. 

The skin was still toned, a little wan from a hospital stay but a natural shade of olive. Dark hair that had been pushed back in death. Short of stature that didn't translate in the photos. There had been some loss in musculature with it's fight with the disease, but the evidence was there all the same. 

The shape of the face was all wrong. The jaw settled back by gravity, the angle of the eyes different. But the cheekbones. The dip in it's collar. The shape of the fingers. 

It was all too much to ignore. 

Charon sighed and looked to his feet, just for a moment to reacclimate. This happened to morticians now and again. Just a hint of similarity was all it took. The usual protocol for something like this would be to remove himself from the situation. Hand the job off to someone else. 

But Charon wasn't like that. He was made of sterner stuff. 

His head rose, neck stiff and creaking, to look at the body one more time. Ridding himself of any prejudices, looking at the body objectively, Charon got to work. 

He washed the body, scrubbing with disinfectant. He rubbed the rigor from the joints, flexing them into pliancy. Holding onto a small hand between his own, massaging each finger knuckle by knuckle, Charon slowed. His thumbs traced slow circles, pushing skin, bracing limp fingers across his own. Charon let the hand drop back to the stainless steel. It gonged, the dull tinny noise reverberating across the tile. Charon went for the other arm. 

Charon paused, eye caps in hand, hovering just over the deceased's face. He was detached, resolved. There was a distance Charon kept between him and the dead. It was a body. It did not matter what he saw behind those lids, no matter how he prayed for blue or green or hazel in the back of his mind. A deep obsidian stared back up at him. Disregarding the details of pupils devoid of life, Charon placed the caps as he would any other body. 

There was a meditative quality in performing the same activities he did day in and day out. A different shape, slight alterations that created new puzzles and new conundrums to shake up the routine. As Charon laced up the bottom jaw to the top, his gaze glazed over, not looking at the details, and sinking into muscle memory.

Plugged up and prepped, single point injection for a non traumatic death. No trauma. Simple. Charon flipped on the pump. The drone filled the room, a white noise that filled Charon's ears like cotton. 

He watched the face, making sure the eyes didn't sink. Long lashes kissed the heart shaped cheeks almost like he was sleeping. 

Charon stared at his shoes again, drumming his knees. 

The skin turned from a natural shade of grey to the awkward artificial sheen of the neon pink additive. A facsimile of life. 

Hours passed. Charon should have moved, should have gone on break, should have filled out the paperwork. He stayed. He watched. 

The last of the machine wheezed to a finish and Charon moved onto the cavity. He cataloged all the differences he could find in the skin, the stomach, the jut of a hip. He cut his incision, interested his trocar, and the body was just a body. 

Steady work if draining the cavity of gas and fluid, replaced with formaldehyde, scents familiar to Charon, smells that were safe. Like his cigarette smoke or sweat after a long run or dirt under fingernails and the leftover aroma of flowers or the soap that Charon sometimes used when he–

Charon paused in his work, ignoring the rising pace of his breath and how it fogged up his mask. He took a deep breath in, smelling the formaldehyde and nothing but, bowed his head, and returned to work. 

The day grew late and Charon should have left for the evening. There were many things Charon should have done. Pulling out his beautician kit was not one of them. 

All that was really needed were the neck up and the hands. Charon carefully clipped fingernails and brushed dust on the back of knuckles. He laid foundation over the face, caking it on to block out death and give Charon a canvas. He lined the eyes and the lips, adding life that was no longer there. Charon brushed pinkish rogue to Her–

Charon stopped. Halted in his place. He bowed his head once more, hands tight on his knees. He held his breath and his thoughts until they could be righted again. 

It was just a body. 

Raising his brush once more, Charon applied the blush to  _ its _ cheeks. 

When it all was over, Charon brushed out the dark locks, the slightest of curls kissing their tips, where the hairs were short on the back of its neck. He idled, letting gloved fingers coil through them. 

When it was enough, Charon tucked the body away, locked up and left. 

He changed his boots in the interstitial room between the embalming suite and the waking world, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing. The Home was quiet and dark, well past regular hours of operation. Charon was supposed to go home to his brothers and his bed, but he knew what wouldn't be there if he went. 

Charon turned his hearse to the city. 

It was one of those drives where he couldn't recall it happening. Functioning on muscle memory alone, reaching a destination without recollection of the process. He smoked, but was unsure of how many cigarettes he went through. At least two, remembering the way the hearse veered as he lit the second on shaking hands. 

Charon rode the elevator in silence, his heart hammering with the grinding of clunky gears. Nervous and afraid of the possibility he might not find what he was looking for. 

The door was locked and he fumbled for the key that was given to him. He opened the door. 

A body, upright and dancing in the kitchen, paused mid sway to look at the intruder with surprise. A smile split his face in only the way the living could. 

"Well hey there boss," Hermes said. "Wasn't expecting you." 

Charon didn't even make it across the threshold. He couldn't take a step. The remnants of adrenaline gave out, the last gasps of the tentative fissures that were holding Charon upright snapped like twine. 

His legs gave out and he crumbled to the ground. 

The world disappeared in favor of void. The setting no longer mattered as Charon floated away. A heat prickled behind his eyes, wet and angry. He hid behind his hands, his knees pulled up to his chest, breath shaking and tight. Shoulders shuddering with restrained screams. Half from the built up terror, half from relief. Vaguely he was aware of someone calling his name. 

Someone alive. 

Fingers plucked at his hands but didn't attempt to pry them away. A gentle touch, familiar and worn in, stroked back his hair. Arms wrapped around his head, holding him near. Charon returned the embrace, fiercely hugging back the warm, breathing, beating, sweating, flush body. 

A living body. 

Hermes. 

"Okay," Hermes wheezed, the air squeezed out of him by the too tight hold, but he did nothing to stop it. He pressed his cheek cheek to the top of Charon's head and stroked back his hair. "You're okay." 

The rest of the night was a blur. Hermes managed to get Charon up off the floor, maneuvered him through all the motions of a human being. Hermes washed Charon, rubbed out his joints, prepared him for sleep. Hermes lay Charon down and even though it was still much too early, he lay beside him. 

Charon wasn't sure if sleep would find him that night. He wasn't sure how much he could handle seeing Hermes lay there, eyes closed, waiting until the next breath rolled through his body. Dark eyes watched him, glinting with life as they scanned his face, waiting on answers that might never come. Charon placed a hand to Hermes' chest, just to feel the inflation of a ribcage, making room for air. 

"What happened?" Hermes finally asked. 

A lump clawed its way into Charon's throat. He felt the heat once again scratch at dehydrated eyes. 

A hand folded over his, fingers entwined. 

<body came in> Charon said. <he looked like you>

Hermes said nothing. There was nothing to say. He inched closer across the bed and took Charon into his arms. 

Charon turned his head to press his ear to Hermes' chest, just to hear his heartbeat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hug a loved one if you can 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	21. Oblivious - Zagreus/Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hypnos comes to a realization

“I think he likes you.” 

Hermes had leaned over the back of the couch, getting right into Hypnos’ face as he was wont to do, and spoke the words with a conspiratorial nature. The whisper was too loud to be truly secretive, but there was hardly anyone around to eavesdrop either. He had bounced his eyebrows once at Hypnos’ confused expression, excited to share the news. 

“What?” Hypnos had asked, but he had heard. 

The words played out in his mind over and over again, rolling like a boulder down a hill and picking up moss as it cut through trees. 

The idea hadn’t entered Hypnos’ mind before. It hadn’t been a possibility. Long ago, Hypnos had reconciled with the conclusion that he just wasn’t someone people dated. It was too difficult, he was too strange. Not a thought that came out of a depressive state, but just a fact. 1+1=2, Hypnos was undateable. 

He paid closer attention. The way Zagreus smiled at him, full of restrained excited energy. The way he was quick to jump at little ideas Hypnos had, off hand comments. Careful and cognizant in the way he talked about Hypnos and his restrictions. Accepting and accommodating. 

The way he rested a hand on Hypnos’ shoulder and immediately took it back like it was scalding. 

_“I think he likes you.”_

Hypnos compared it. The way Zagreus talked to Thanatos, full of goofs and general silliness, getting Than to laugh and having actual insightful moments. The way Zagreus respectfully spoke to Charon, still on edge and careful to not offend the eldest Chthonic. His casual ease with Hermes. All of it. 

Different from how he spoke with Hypnos. 

Almost shy, a little too eager. Sometimes he blushed, sometimes he laughed a little too hard, sometimes he sat a little too close. All little things that Hypnos would have never picked up on if someone hadn’t pointed them out to him. 

Curled up watching a movie with his brothers. Zagreus seemed to be perpetually over, seated next to Hypnos, under a blanket together, their feet folded over one another on the coffee table. Hermes on the other side of the room, bouncing his eyebrows again. 

_“I think he likes you.”_

Hypnos couldn’t see why. 

He stood in front of his mirror, naked as the day he was born, and inspected his body. He ran his hands down the front of his chest, feeling the way his ribs rippled and bumped against his fingers. The flat of his stomach and the soft press of weak skin that bruised too easily. Long gangly limbs with knocked knees that were perpetually in pain and creaked when they bent. A human that would have been the right proportions if he were a little shorter, stretched out like laffy taffy. 

His hands framed his face. Knobby fingers that cracked with the slightest movement, a callous on his right hand where he pressed his pencil too hard when he held it. Tired eyes, lined with dark circles and heavy bags. A too wide mouth, a too upturned nose, hair that never obeyed him and went where it pleased. 

A broken body.

It didn’t make sense. It went against the facts. 

1+1=2

Hypnos was undateable. 

And there Zagreus was, adding 1 to 1 and coming up with 100. 

Hypnos couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see what it was that Zagreus saw. He didn’t understand why or how. He tried to wrap his mind around it, tried to come up with some way for it to make sense, but the synapses simply weren’t firing. 

But Zagreus might have liked him. 

Zagreus probably did like him. 

Zagreus, pure and sweet and simple and beautiful Zagreus, liked him. 

And who was Hypnos to dictate how Zagreus should feel. 

He smiled and buried his face into his hands, squishing his cheeks in delight. A soft little squeal curled up in the back of his throat. One foot folded over the other and his creaky knees bent. His body coiled in on itself in the pure enjoyment of being liked. Of being attractive to someone. 

Zagreus could like him if he wanted. Hypnos wasn’t going to tell him otherwise. 

An energy surged through Hypnos, a shot of inspiration and invigoration that made Hypnos want to try just a little harder that day. He pulled out some of his favorite clothes, ignoring the ones he had so carefully chosen earlier in the week to make his decisions easier. Choosing soft brightly colored fabrics, a skirt that he adored and a top he thought he looked particularly good in. He would put a ribbon in his hair that day, he picked out glittered nail polish to put on. 

Zagreus would be coming over later. 

Once some sort of respectable, Hypnos poked his head out his door. 

“Hey Charon?” he asked, calling down the hall. 

His elder brother was busy brushing his teeth and leaned to the side to poke his head out the door. He paused mid brush in silent question. 

“Could you help me with my make up?” 

Charon held the toothbrush between clamped teeth and gave Hypnos a thumbs up. He spit out the lathered up toothpaste and went back to his room to get his kit. 

_____

Hypnos had fallen asleep. 

He sat on the porch in his chair, sketchbook in his lap. His pencil had slipped from his hand and had rolled out onto the walkway. A soft snore tickled his nose. 

The autumnal breeze had forced Hypnos to put on a light jacket, but the sunshine made it slip off bare shoulders. A soft sweat had slid underneath the arms, chilled by the cool of the air. An odd mixture that was simultaneously uncomfortable and nice. 

The high energy of the morning had worn Hypnos out and left him exhausted by mid afternoon. He wasn’t too sure what it was that woke him up, but with a half snort of a snore stopping abruptly in his nose and a quick suck of air in, Hypnos’ eyes fluttered open. He peered around the front yard, looking into the quiet of the neighborhood, until he caught sight of a blurry figure standing in their walkway. 

Dressed in an equally too hot for the weather, but too cold without bright red jacket stood Zagreus. Simply smiling, simply waiting. That smile grew wider at Hypnos’ rouse, the blush that Hypnos was starting to recognize crept up Zagreus’ cheeks. 

“Are you watching me sleep?” Hypnos croaked. 

Zagreus shrugged. 

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. 

Hypnos shifted, pulling himself up to sit up straighter in the chair, and glanced down at the sketchbook in his lap. Disparate parts of a face dominated the page, pieces that went unconnected from one another, but made up a whole. Eyes, strands of hair, ears, a mouth. All of them matching the face that stood in front of him. 

Hypnos closed his book and pushed his chair a little closer. Zagreus moved to meet him halfway. 

Hypnos thought he liked Zagreus back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are just so ding dang cute 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	22. Dinner - Chthonic bros, Zag, & Nyx

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dinner with Nyx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know these are drabbles. . . 
> 
> this one. . . uh. . . might not be? I'm starting to put way too much effort into these 
> 
> anyways welcome to a very awkward dinner

Zagreus could sense the energy on the other side of the door long before he raised his fist to knock. He could hear Than barking out orders, asking questions, the panicky crack in his cry that he only got when Zagreus was doing something  _ truly _ stupid. Hypnos' little lilt would answer, the end of the statement upturned like a question, almost mocking. The silence that followed was filled with a palpable frustration and Zagreus didn't need to be a mind reader to know  _ exactly _ the face Than was making. 

He knocked on the door to the tune of  _ shave and a haircut _ . 

"Hypnos," Thanatos' exasperated call came out, muted by the door. 

The gradual whine of quiet mechanisms grew in a doppler effect before the return knock of  _ two bits. _

Zagreus laughed, scuffing his shoe against the cement, waiting for the door to open. 

Hypnos answered the door, smile first. Once he saw who it was standing at his stoop in the twilight, his sleepy broad smile widened. His chair rolled back on the entrance way tile until it hit carpet, holding the door open, vulnerable to mosquitos. 

"I'm afraid we have a strict no solicitors policy at this establishment," he said. 

"Then I'll have to do my very best not to solicit," Zagreus said, leaning forward, hands in his pockets. 

A witty retort was ripe on Hypnos' teeth when his twin interrupted. 

"We can't come out to play today," Thanatos said. His bland expression was marred with just a hint of irritation and he was in the process of looping a windsor knot of a smart looking silver tie. 

"That's okay," Zagreus said, wandering in to prevent any more invading mosquitos. "I was figuring a quiet night in, get some pizza, watch a. . ." 

Zagreus scanned up and down Hypnos. 

“. . . movie,” he said vacantly. 

Hypnos was dressed up. Red shirt tucked into khaki slacks and nondescript shoes, finished off with a white bowtie, so pristine it looked as if it might not have been worn before. 

It was like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. 

"You look. . ." Zagreus scanned Hypnos up and down. "Nice?" 

"Gee thanks," Hypnos chirped. "You don't sound very sure about that.” 

“Oh sorry.” Zagreus couldn’t take his eyes off the khakis. “Its just a little different from your usual.” 

"Trying something new," Hypnos said. "Is it doing it for you?" 

Zagreus, by nature, was a bad liar, and often times it was best to not even try. Quit while he was still ahead. He pressed his lips into a thin line, a mockery of a strained smile, and shook his head. 

"Ah well," Hypnos lilted. "It was worth the college try." 

"You didn't go to college," Thanatos muttered before finishing off his tie a little too tight and shouting down the hall. "Charon!" 

"Well you look good anyways," Zagreus said quickly not wanting to be misunderstood. Then just as quick, realized just how understood he could be realized for. His face prickled with heat and he held up his hands as a defense mechanism. "What I mean is. . . well you uh. . . what I meant to say." 

Hypnos' face was the same placid stillness it always was, but his smile quirked, his eyes sparkled. He did nothing to help Zagreus, threw no bones, and watched him flounder. 

A loud slam came from down the hall. The rattling of door decor juddered like bones as they settled back into place. 

“I’m  _ so  _ sorry boss, but plans are plans.” 

Hermes walked out into the living room first, not sounding apologetic in the slightest, followed shortly by an irate Charon. The oversized embalmer was also dressed up, at least for him. Draped in dark colors, wearing a signature hat, and probably more jewelry than usual, if only by a chain or two. The man could sink a boat. It was only then Zagreus noticed that Thanatos was also technically in formal wear, but it was so close to his day to day it was almost indistinguishable. 

Hermes was not formal in any way whatsoever. 

Charon signed something back, too quick for Zagreus to pick up in the shade of the hallway. 

"No can do big man," Hermes said walking backwards. "A date is a date and I don't break my promises." 

Charon angrily swung his hands and Zagreus could pick up on  _ promise to me _ and  _ turtle. _ The deep frown on his face all the translation Zagreus needed. 

"I won't tell her you said that," Hermes said. He tugged Charon down by his shirt sleeve, went on his tiptoes, and planted the briefest of pecks on Charon's cheek. The whole act so quick, of Zagreus had blinked he might have missed it. "Now you behave, don't deliberately piss her off, and text if you need anything.  _ Really  _ need anything, I don't want false SOSes every 15 minutes like last time. Okay be good babe byeeee!" 

<traitor>

That one Zagreus could read. 

Hermes all but skipped away, seeing Zagreus at the last minute with a little _ oop _ and twirling around him. 

"Hey coz bye coz," he said in one breath and was out the door. 

"I have never seen a person run away faster," Thanatos said blandly. 

Charon signed something about murder. 

"You don't mean that," Hypnos said.

"What's. . . going on?" Zagreus asked carefully. 

<go home>

"Zagreus we don't have the time–" Thanatos sighed. 

"We're going to see mom!" Hypnos said. "Wanna come?" 

"Hypnos," Thanatos said. 

"Sure," Zagreus said. 

"Zagreus!" 

<no you don't> Charon said, then something else about  _ horrible _ and  _ run away. _

"Oh come on," Zagreus said, sliding his hands into his pockets and putting on his most charismatic smile. "It's been forever since I last saw Nyx. It would be excellent to catch up with her again." 

Thanatos peered down Zagreus, somewhere between unimpressed boredom and ire. As he usually did, Than gave in. He clicked his tongue and shook his head. 

"Not like that you're not," he said. "Come on, I'll get you a shirt." 

Thanatos and Zagreus had always been roughly the same build, but Than's tailored button downs were a little tight around the shoulders.

"Just don't flex," Thanatos said, irritated as he knotted a red tie. "Or shrug too hard. How about you just don't move, think you can do that Zag?" 

Zagreus shrugged, feeling the shirt strain, and conjuring up another bland stare from his friend. 

"Come on," he said. "Let's go." 

They all climbed into Charon's hearse, Zagreus and Hypnos climbing into the after market installed back seat bench. They left behind Hypnos' chair and took the careful steps of his lackadaisical gait. Piled in, they took off in the familiar directions of Nyx's manor. Car deathly quiet as they went, no radio, no conversation, the funerial brothers as silent as the grave. 

"So. . ." Zagreus said, drumming a beat on his lap. 

"Nope," Thanatos said. 

Zagreus pressed his lips into a wan smile. Hypnos beside him wore an identical one. He shrugged. 

The manor sat atop a winding driveway that cut through a forest laden hill, draped in shadow to the point that in those dusk hours it looked to be night. Charon's hearse crested the hill and the setting sun backed the imposing silhouette of the manor. 

The Chthonics were what his father called "old blood" and the very ringed cores of the cloven family tree were the Home and the manor. Zagreus had initially been intimidated and frightened of the monstrous estate and it's grounds. A sweeping entrance of grey columns and elongated stone steps. It smelled of money in a way that Zagreus hadn't been anticipating. Dragged literally by the hand by a new best friend who wanted someone to play with. 

Coming up to the manor after so many years felt like coming home. 

Charon parked the hearse in the curved driveway that lead up to the house, leaving it deliberately in the way of anyone wanting to get in or out. He assisted Hypnos out of the car and once the car locked, reporting as such were a double beep, Charon dredged his cigarettes from his pocket and immediately lit up. Than shot him a look, but otherwise said nothing. 

The large double doors opened before they finished ascending the stair and there stood Nyx, the woman who Zagreus would always consider a second mom.

Still as tall as he last remembered, going slightly gray, stylishly at her temples, but face almost completely devoid of wrinkles. Statuesque, always dressed in flowing dresses and jewelry like her eldest son. Years since he'd last seen her, since high school, and at the sight of her it felt like coming home to Zagreus. 

"Zagreus," Nyx said, her voice as sweet as a song. "What a pleasant surprise."

“Hello Nyx,” Zagreus said with a little wave. “Its good to see you.” 

“Thanatos, Hypnos.” Nyx leaned down to give both her twin sons a double armed hug at the same time, delicate and gentle, just light enough to be polite. 

“Mother,” Thanatos said into her shoulder. 

“Hey mom,” Hypnos said, returning the hug. “Er uh. . . mother.” 

“Come inside,” Nyx insisted of her sons and pseudo son. “Be sure to take your shoes off.” 

Charon took up the end of the train, ready to follow the entourage inside, but he was halted by a single elegant hand, palm near his face. 

“Not in the house,” was all she said. 

Charon took a long breath in, the fire of his cigarette burning in oranges and reds and chasing up the paper. He plucked it from his lips and bent down to snuff the fresh cigarette out on the pale stone of the front porch. 

“Just leave it there,” Nyx said, standing tall over her hunched son. “I’ll send for someone to clean it up.” 

Charon made it only a step inside the threshold before Nyx stopped him again. Hand held out, expectant and waiting. The miraculous ability of a mother to instantly infantilize their sons, reminding them of the hierarchy in the family. Charon, stoic faced as ever, did not seem to care for it. Regardless, he removed his hat and glasses, placing both of them in his mother’s palm, looking far more bare than what Zagreus was used to. 

The house was as bustling as Zagreus remembered, in its eerie silent way. Footsteps reverberating across marble floors as the help scuttled about with their own chores. The figure by the doorway took Charon’s hat and had it been of a more chilly temperature, would probably have done the same for coats. As it stood, he looked pathetically useless with the two items. 

Zagreus could hear the rest of the staff moving through silverware as the last minute settings were placed on the dining table in the other room. He had forgotten just how formal dinner often was in the Chthonic household. 

He liked it when he, Hypnos, and Than would just eat pizza rolls in the kitchen. 

By the time they reached the sprawling dining room, the staff had completed their settings and all but disappeared from the room. Despite being in a tie, Zagreus still felt horribly out of place sitting down at the ornate table and suddenly saw why Thanatos felt the need to dress him up. 

Dinner with his mom was a far cry dinner with Nyx. Persephone’s farm was a quieter cozier affair, seated close together in a warm dining room, an offshoot from the kitchen. Even when it was more formal on the high holidays, it still had nothing on the cold formality of the Chthonic table. 

Staff came out to place bowls of interesting looking liquid, too thick to really be soup, but they were placed with spoons. Soup it was then. Zagreus thanked the person who served him and it was only when he did, did the rest of the brothers return in kind. 

Sipping supposed soup from a spoon, it dawned on Zagreus that he had never had a dinner with Nyx before. That his time at the mansion had always been with Thanatos, maybe Hypnos if he felt welcome to join in. Nyx had always been too busy, too removed to have dinner with them. 

What had initially felt like a good opportunity to ‘catch up’ had transformed into a social decorum that Zagreus had willingly locked himself into. 

He understood why Charon told him to run. 

“Charon,” Nyx said. 

Charon’s spoon hit the side of his bowl in what could have been a flinch. Zagreus was pretty sure that wasn’t it. Charon didn’t flinch.

“How are things?” Nyx asked, bringing her spoon to her lips and not offering her son a glance. 

Charon dropped his spoon. 

<fine> he said. 

“And Hermes?” Nyx asked between bites. 

<fine>

Nyx, perfect posture and a complacent smile fixed onto her flawless face, turned her eyes to her eldest son. They flicked over him, taking in too many rings and a tattoo that peered just under his collar. After multiple visits to the little version of the Chthonic household, Zagreus had seen the various states of Charon. He had seen low effort, no fucks left to give Charon, and the Charon at that dinner table was put together in comparison. 

Seated next to Nyx, he looked like woke up after a night in the gutter. 

“Would there happen to be any particular reason he’s not joining us tonight?” she asked. 

Dead eyes looked out over the table and Zagreus remembered the distinct cut of his fingers at the word traitor. Zagreus also understood Hermes’ motives as well. 

<he was busy> Charon said. 

“Ah well,” Nyx said through another delicate taste of her soup. Zagreus wondered what magic she did to not force a slurp. “Perhaps next time. I do enjoy his company.” 

Charon was as stoic as a statue, a trait he got from his mother. Blame it on Zagreus’ astute attention, but he managed to catch the brief moment where Charon’s mouth pressed tight, where his eyes widened just a hair. Where he mentally catalogued how distinctly that was  _ not _ going to happen. As much as he wanted Hermes to be there, he seemed hesitant to subject his boyfriend to the same torture they were currently undergoing. 

It was not until recently that Zagreus had become comfortable around Charon, consistently intimidated by the significantly looming older brother. He blamed the way Charon emoted in the tiny home, the communication between his brothers and his loved ones, that gave Zagreus a sense of comfort around him. 

Charon had gone reticent, once again transforming into the creature of pure intimidation Zagreus used to know. 

His hand slid to his pocket as an automatic action and Nyx cleared her throat. She held out her perfectly manicured hand, expectant and open. Charon sneered and slapped the packet of cigarettes into it without a word between them.

Soup, or in Zagreus’ case an empty bowl, was taken away from them and replaced with already prepared plates. Meat and carb and veg, a perfectly balanced meal, or in Than’s case, veg topped with more veg. A strange balance of attentiveness to her son’s needs while simultaneously giving them a lack of choice. 

Zagreus tried to find a way to permeate the silence, clearing his throat and prodding what looked like beef cooked to perfection, searching his mind for the typical charisma he normally held. 

Thanatos beat him to the punch. 

“The Cohen account went through,” he said. His back just as straight as his mother’s, a mimicry of her proper mannerisms that didn’t quite come as effortlessly as it did to Nyx. “The financial support was finally set up and I was thinking we could schedule–”

“There is no need to talk about work at the dinner table Thanatos,” Nyx said. 

It sounded like a favor, a reprieve for Than to not be working for two seconds, but the way Thanatos’ fork hovered over his plate, the way he blankly stared at his mother, told Zagreus that there was nothing else in his arsenal. Instead, he prodded his asparagus and shoved it whole into his mouth. 

Had this been pizza and a movie, Zagreus would have jumped into an assortment of topics. Letting Than go on about the latest blunders at the Home, Hermes filled in the spaces with whatever idle topic he could bounce off Zagreus, asking Hypnos about his latest illustrations. 

Zagreus looked to Hypnos who sat next to him. A calm smile, as serene as his mother, as cool as his twin, as unreadable as his older sibling. His eyes were glazed over and his head cocked slightly to the side. 

Zagreus knew he wasn’t there, his mind fluttering off into the cotton white noise. How Hypnos explained when the day had gone on for too long he would begin to fade. 

Putting on a bowtie must have cost him something. 

Sitting in the awkward stiffness probably cost him more. 

“And what of you, Zagreus?” Nyx said, reeling Zagreus back to the dinner table. “What brings you back to town?” 

Zagreus suddenly found himself under the scrutiny of a far stricter being than he had encountered before. The formality of the dinner having plagued on him and weakened defenses he didn’t know he was supposed to have. It left Zagreus in the same uncomfortable position as a crawling bacteria under a microscopic lens. 

"Uuuhhh," Zagreus said, a nervous smile twitching on his lips. 

He glanced to Thanatos, wondering how much of the winding tale to share. Often times from his childhood, Nyx treated Zagreus with such care he would joke that she was mom #2. Certainly she knew the situation with his parents, Zagreus was pretty sure she was still in contact with his mother, but he was also pretty sure that wasn't exactly dinner table conversation. 

Setting aside his normal candor, Zagreus edited his time down to the simplest facts possible. 

"Oh you know, the usual," he said. "I left college and came back to . . . be near my parents. Figured I'd meet up with Than and everyone. And trying to find a nice place to settle in the meanwhile, get my feet on the ground. That seems like the normal experience I would think?" 

He could practically feel the way Thanatos' eyes flicked up to him and Zagreus wondered what bear trap he stepped in to warrant that. 

"And how is that going for you?" Nyx asked, folding one and over the other. 

"Pretty well so far I'd say," Zagreus said. "I've been job hopping, trying to find something that sticks, taking up contract work here and there. But I recently started working for the Old Spiked Collar down town, have you heard of them?" 

Nyx raised a single thin brow. 

"The pet sitters?" she asked.

"They do dog walking and grooming and puppy training too," Zagreus said, proud of his place of employment. "I'm only there part time for now, but it's enough that I can pay for rent." 

Thanatos' second glance wasn't as friendly. Less of a warning and more of pity for a deceased friend. Zagreus stopped at the dog walking job and figured the bait and tackle shop he worked weekends would probably have Than writing his eulogy. He smiled wanly at Nyx and waited to hear what hammer she would drop down on him. 

Instead, he received the same warm smile from his second mother that he always did. 

"That sounds lovely, Zagreus," she said. "I'm glad you're flourishing so well." 

A smile warmed onto Zagreus' face and he cut another corner from his beef. He didn't know what had been so intimidating in the first place. He focused on his own dinner, enjoying his own little lot in life, and almost missed the shiver of death that shivered up his spine. The shocking silence settled in his ears and he recognized the vacancy of the scratch of utensils on plates. 

Slowly, he raised his head. 

Gold eyes that pierced like a bird of prey stared him down from across the table. It was not a quick glance but an unblinking, unflinching wide eyed glare. Thanatos gripped his fork delicate and a shade too tight, as motionless as a statue. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Zagreus caught another's attention. Charon had always been intimidating, but with his face blank and aimed at their guest, Zagreus could taste death on his tongue. The grim, almost skeletal face of a monster who did not promise, only stated fact.

Already knowing, Zagreus looked to the third brother and sure enough he had Hypnos' full attention as well. Gone was the soft smile, one of the rare moments when Hypnos' expression went  _ completely _ vacant. He leaned forward slightly, interested in what it was that made Zagreus special.

Three sets of near identical eyes, shining with bloodlust, aimed at him. 

Zagreus cleared his throat and jabbed his meat again.

"And-and how about you? Nyx," Zagreus said. "How have you been?" 

Nyx laughed, low and throaty and a rumbling gentle. She waved him off in a delicate arc. 

"We'll save that for another time perhaps," she said. "That is if I can convince you to attend a weekend brunch?" 

"Yeah, I would love to," Zagreus said through the cold sweat. "Maybe Hermes can come too." 

He looked pleading back to Charon who returned to some semblance of normalcy, an even level of annoyance rather than the stark chilliness. He rolled his eyes and returned to his meal before his mother could witness anything more that withdrawn stoicism. 

Dinner left with the same efficiency as it had come. Dessert came in the form of sorbet in tiny little dishes, shaped in a sphere so perfect that Zagreus was afraid to destroy it. Spoon poised at the ready, hesitating before making the first incision. 

He wasn't alone. Next to him, Hypnos was in a similar state, but it wasn't appreciation that stilled his hand, but the drooping of his head as exhaustion settled in. It wasn't ideal, but the tilt of his head, the hunch of his body, the little  _ tmp _ as his spoon hit the table was far too adorable. Zagreus was staring and couldn't bring himself to care who noticed. 

"Hypnos," Nyx said. 

Hypnos' head jerked up suddenly with a sharp intake of air and his eyes widening, still far too heavy lidded to be truly awake. He blinked too many times before returning his neutral state of placidity. 

"Hi, how may I help you?" he asked. 

Nyx's smooth calm matched the complacency of her son. 

"You look well," she said. "I take it your treatments have proven to be effective?" 

Zagreus could instantly sense it. The way Thanatos seemed to freeze. The nervous twitch of Charon going for his pocket again. 

Hypnos sitting up a little straighter. Putting on a presentation. 

"Yes," he said. 

Nyx carved a miniscule scoop from her frozen sphere. 

"I'm glad it's taken root," she said. "And I look forward to your remission." 

Hypnos' mouth pressed into a thin smile and he nodded stiffly. He fumbled with the spoon, twisting it inelegantly between his fingers. 

"I am to assume that physical therapy is one of the main factors to your recovery?" she asked. 

"Eurydice is very good at her job," Hypnos said, shoving too much sorbet into his face, in an effort to have an excuse to not have to talk.

"A routine may do you good," Nyx said. "Therapy has given you one, yes?" 

Hypnos nodded, spoon shoved so far in his mouth it bulged his cheek. A quiet  _ 'mmhmm' _ punctuating the nod. 

"Walking has proven benefits for your health," Nyx said. "Perhaps if you acquired a daily walking routine you may find more energy acquired over time. At least while the weather is still temperate." 

Hypnos looked down at his dish, as if in thought, his eyes heavier than they had been all evening. Across from him, Thanatos' spoon drove into the edge of his glass as it did laps around the melting sorbet. His jaw worked to the side in an obvious effort to hold back words. 

"Mother–" he started. 

"Hey Hypnos weren't you just telling me about that park the other day?" Zagreus asked a little too loud. 

He commanded the attention of most of the room (Charon still focused on either his empty pocket or finding the nearest exit). Hypnos' eyes seemed to light up, more curious than anything. He nodded, still holding the spoon between his lips. 

"How about you take me there some time and we can check it out?" Zagreus offered. "I mean when you're feeling up to it." 

Hypnos cocked his head to the side, his smile small around the handle of his utensil. He finally swallowed and pulled the silver from his lips. 

"That would be real nice," he said. 

"Cool," Zagreus said, ignoring the way heat crawled up his face. "Just give me a call whenever and I'll come on by."

There was a genuine light that glowed behind Hypnos' sleepy eyes. He tapped the spoon to his lip, considering Zagreus with a quiet contemplation. A whole conversation that crossed between them that Zagreus couldn't follow. 

He managed to break free and returned to the dinner. The spoken contact seemed to have satisfied Nyx and she nodded once before returning the quiet stern focus to her dessert. 

Zagreus meet Thanatos' eyes and found relief in his friend. Thanatos mouthed the words  _ 'thank you.' _ Zagreus nodded his head. 

It really was no problem. 

There was no lingering after the last of the dishware was taken away. Charon was first on his feet, shoving his chair from the table with the harsh grind of wood on wood. He led the charge to the door, around the corner before anyone else was on their feet. Zagreus and Thanatos lingered, more so to match Hypnos' slow shuffle to his feet. 

He took Zagreus' offered arm. 

The hugs with Nyx did not reflect the stiffness of dinner, long and secure as she wrapped her arms around her twin sons one at a time. As she held Hypnos, Zagreus could hear soft words of gratitude, an unintended eavesdrop. 

"Thank you for arranging this," Nyx whispered into her son's ear. 

"No problem mom," Hypnos said back, not bothering with any sense if secrecy. 

Nyx offered one up to Zagreus which he graciously took. 

"Until next time, Zagreus," she said. 

"I'll be sure to be there," he promised. "Brunch." 

She pat him twice on the back and released him into the night. Before she retreated back into the quiet of her large empty home, she returned the confiscated cigarettes to Charon, waiting at the door with hat and glasses on, worn like armor. He took them and have a curt <goodbye> before immediately lighting up. 

They piled into the hearse and drove away from the manor. 

A dull liberation permeated the interior that hadn't been there earlier in the evening. Charon drove with the window open, lit cigarette dangling in a limp hand, smoke whisping in the breeze. The radio was on, softly playing indiscernible melodies that Zagreus almost, but not quite, recognized. 

Hypnos was asleep within seconds. No sooner than the car had started did his eyes closed and his body fell limp to the side. Head heavily thunked upon Zagreus' shoulder, a quiet snore with every breath. Zagreus heart beating double it's pace, but he didn't have the heat to shake him off. 

Thanatos sighed long and low, air leaving him as if he had been holding it the whole night. He slid low on his seat, the belt driving up into his chin, legs splayed long into the dark of the foot well. 

"That could've gone worse," he said. 

Charon huffed out something too bitter to be a laugh. 

The car rumbled quiet through paved back roads, steadily following the speed limit. The music from the radio little more than a background hum.

Zagreus could see Thanatos' eyes in the rear view mirror, staring straight ahead into the twin headlights that illuminated the road. They flicked to meet Zagreus. 

"Thanks for coming, Zag," he said. 

"Yeah sure," Zagreus said. "Anytime." 

He settled down in the back of the car, letting his body go as boneless as the rest of the inhabitants. His head leaned to the side, cheek resting on a cloud of soft wild hair that breathed with the steady even pace of slumber. There was a space between him and the body next to him, where a limp hand had fallen. Fingers curled in an open cup, rested against the fabric bench. 

Zagreus reached out with his pinky to brush against cool skin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nyx is well meaning just. . . bad at it
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	23. Swing Set - zagreus/hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zagreus and Hypnos go on a date?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just. . . livin in my zagnos hell hole.

"You've really never heard it?" 

"Nope!" 

"It's been on the radio for months. It's been stuck in my head for months!" 

"Do you think I'm psychic?" 

"What? No?" 

"Then I can't hear your mind," Hypnos said. "Wouldn't that be something if I could?" 

A nervous stuttering palpitated Zagreus' heart and he stood up a little straighter. He strong armed his hands deeper in his pockets in an effort to keep them in the. 

"Ha ha yeah that would be something," he said. 

Hypnos smiled sweetly, even hunched over as he was he still stood tall over Zagreus. His eyes were heavy but unblinking, looking at Zagreus like he knew an his secrets, like he could read minds. 

"Anyways, you have to listen to it, I think you'd like it," Zagreus said, taking out his phone. He frowned and held it higher in the air. "If I got reception." 

"It would be interesting if you did," Hypnos said. "We are in the middle of the woods." 

It wasn't so much the middle of the nowhere, but it had been a drive to get to the park. Fewer and fewer houses and businesses and more dense deciduous forest. The sun had danced through the branches, more and more shade decorating Zagreus' windshield until the canopy opened up and illuminated his world in golden sunshine. An open field with a widening path, picnic tables, a gazebo, and a humble playground. A small carved wooden sign read Elysium Park and Trails at the entrance next to an empty parking lot. Few travelers came out to the quaint park in the middle of a week day. 

"Yeah, we really are out here," Zagreus said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. 

"I like being this far from the city," Hypnos said, turning that placid stare at the clear sky. "It would make for a good place to hide a body." 

He sounded completely serious, but Zagreus laughed like it was a joke anyways. Hypnos' owlish eyes turned back to Zagreus, pleased at the laughter, even if he was confused by it. 

The grass was dry and the gravel crunched under their sneakers. There was a chill in the air but the sun made Zagreus regret his jacket. Geese called in the distance, creating a doppler effect as the flying V that passed overhead. 

Hypnos stopped dead in the path. Zagreus walked just a step before he noticed. He paused.

Hypnos, with his hands stuffed into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie, hunched over further, eyes closed, shoulders up to his ears. He shivered against a stiff breeze. 

Zagreus removed his too sweltering jacket and draped it over Hypnos' shoulders, who clearly needed it more. Hypnos opened one eye and smiled wanly at Zagreus. 

"Want to head back?" he asked. 

"Not yet." Hypnos shook his head. "I think I just need to sit." 

"Gazebo?" Zagreus asked, placing a hand on Hypnos' back.

"Swing set." Hypnos smiled. 

"Your wish is my command." Zagreus steered Hypnos to the metal playground. 

It has been erected sometime in the past decade, maybe two. A metal structure with monkey bars, a tower to climb up, capped with faded red plastic and a swirling plated slide that looked like a bad idea to go down on a summer day. The swing set had two traditional swings and a bucket seat for toddlers. The chains protested when they sat down and the bracer bar shuddered, but it held fast as they settled into the rubber U seats. 

The chains squeaked as Zagreus twisted his seat back and forth. 

"I just," Hypnos said with a heavy breath. "I just need to rest a bit. Sometimes walking makes me tired. It can be too much." 

"I'm sorry!" Zagreus said suddenly. "We could've done something else." 

"No." Shoulders still hunched over, Hypnos held onto the chains and looked side long to Zagreus. One foot was folded over the other and his shoelace was coming untied. "This was worth it." 

A tickling sensation like carbonation fizz bubbled from Zagreus' stomach, up his arms, until his fingers fiddled with the chainlink. A smile he couldn't fight strained against his face. He laughed, coming out in a breathless puff and bowed his head. The swing squeaked as he twisted the other way. 

"I used to have a crush on you." 

It came out before he could think about it. The words spilled from Zagreus. Years of having carried the thoughts and feelings, the same ones that had laid dormant until proximity reawoken them. 

Hypnos' typical slight smile faded a notch, his eyes widening with a new alertness, and he sat up a little straighter. 

"Back in high school," Zagreus explained, unable to walk the confession back. 

"Really?" Hypnos asked. 

"Yeah." Zagreus looked down at his shoes, twisted his swing back the other way. 

Hypnos fidgeted, shoes shifting until the other folded on top, laces finally coming undone. 

"Why?" he asked. 

"Why?" Zagreus laughed, looking up at him. "I mean. . . you were cute. And funny. And nice. Nicer than nice. I liked talking to you and you made me feel good. Happy. I just liked being around you, Hypnos." 

Hypnos bit his lip. Zagreus couldn't tell if he was fretting or holding back a smile. Maybe both. 

"Why didn't you say something?" Hypnos asked quietly. 

"Are you kidding?" Zagreus asked. "You're my best friend's brother. Can you imagine how awkward that would have been if you turned me down? Or if you said yes!? What if we broke up? How weird it would've been between us?" 

Hypnos gave in to the smile, ducking his head back down. 

"Sounds like you were overthinking it," he said. 

"Well. . . high school," Zagreus laughed. 

"Yeah I guess." 

Hypnos pushed back and forth, rocking on his toes. His swing groaned as it was forced back and forth. Hypnos' hands flopped to his lap, the empty sleeves of Zagreus' jacket fluttering at his sides. He fidgeted again, his fingers fiddling in little circles. Zagreus watched the way the wind played through his curls. 

"Past tense," he said. 

"Hm?" Zagreus asked. 

"You used to have a crush on me," Hypnos said. He looked side long to Zagreus. "I used to be cute." 

Zagreus could see the shake in his smile, he could hear the apprehension in his tone. Little details that spurred an encouragement inside him. Just as the invitation to walk through the park had. 

"Present tense," he said. 

Hypnos' head raised again, still tentative and unsure. Sleepy heavy eyes becoming more alert. 

"You're still cute," Zagreus said. 

"Yeah?" Hypnos said, his voice cracking a little. "And?" 

Zagreus reached over and hooked his fingers through the chain in Hypnos' swing. He tugged, pulling Hypnos' swing closer, pulling him closer to Hypnos. Pulling them to meet in the middle. His shoe nudged against Hypnos' foot. 

"And I got a crush on you," Zagreus said leaning in. 

He could smell the uniquely floral scent from Hypnos' shampoo and he could taste the sting from the altoids in the car. Hypnos' breath ghosted across Zagreus' lips in a nervous laughter. 

The chains rattled as he jerked back suddenly. 

"Who says I have a crush on you?" he asked. 

Zagreus, still leaning forward, looked off to the side quickly before dating back to Hypnos with resolve. He shrugged one shoulder. 

"A hunch?" he said. "Unless you don't–" 

Chilled hands half covered in the long sleeves of an oversized hoodie came up to frame Zagreus' face and soft lips pressed against his own. It was over too quick and left Zagreus greedy for more. The shock of the kiss made Zagreus' chest beat hard enough he was sure Hypnos could hear it. 

Soft pale eyes were close enough that Zagreus could see the gold flecks in them. 

"Well look at that," Hypnos said. "It seems I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PUPPY LOVE
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	24. Run - zagreus/hypnos, thanatos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos interrupts an intimate moment

The sun had disappeared and night had settled down over the quiet neighborhood. The living room that had once had been filled with afternoon light was under the dim flickering blue glow of a TV screen. The volume had been turned down to a near indistinguishable level, background music playing in a lilting hum and any dialogue nothing more than murmurs in the distance. Scenes without context flickered across the LCD, characters that had been introduced after Hypnos had fallen asleep and were foreign to him. He questioned if they were still watching the same show. 

“Who’s that?” Hypnos asked, his voice crackling with sleep. 

“Oh you’re up,” Zagreus said. 

“Whats going on?” Hypnos tried to push himself up, but his body had the consistency of silly putty and his arm had gone numb. Besides, it was nice under the protection of Zagreus’ arm wrapped around his shoulders. 

“You fell asleep,” Zagreus said. 

“No, I mean in the show,” Hypnos said. “Are we watching something different? This looks like something different.” 

“No, its the same thing.” Zagreus pressed his face to the top of Hypnos’ head. He could feel Zagreus’ lips move against his crown. “We finished a season. They’re in this weird town thing now. The cop friend died in the finale.” 

“Oh thats a shame,” Hypnos said through a yawn. He pressed his face against Zagreus’ chest, the fleshy part of his cheek pulling and distorting his mouth into a smile. “. . .who’s the cop friend again?” 

“The jerk,” Zagreus said. 

“They’re all jerks,” Hypnos said. 

Zagreus snorted and sat up, just enough to look down at Hypnos. Hypnos didn’t bother returning it, opting instead to continue his enjoyment of Zagreus’ soft sweatshirt. From the smell it clearly hadn’t been washed in a while and Hypnos admitted quietly to himself that he enjoyed that. It smelled like Zagreus. 

“Didn’t you recommend this show?” Zagreus asked, his voice bouncing in a laugh with that same quiet incredulity that laced under his words. 

“I’ve never seen it,” Hypnos said. 

Zagreus barked out a laugh that jolted his whole body and made Hypnos bounce with it. Hypnos flopped bonelessly with the motion, content to go wherever Zagreus led him. 

They settled back against one another, sinking into the comfort of the couch. Still fairly new as far as couches go, selectively chosen for its L shape and longevity. It hugged the body comfortably and, more importantly, was excellent to pass out on. It didn’t hurt to wake up, there was no sleep paralysis, deep enough to spread out on. A plush blanket lived draped over the back of the couch, but Hypnos’ latest nap did not necessitate it. Not with Zagreus wrapped around him. 

“Are you watching?” Zagreus asked, still enraptured by the television. 

“Who’s to say,” Hypnos said. 

He had fallen asleep sitting up, his legs still dangling off the sides but feet folded limp and inwards. The sit up pass out was a rare position for Hypnos and his neck ached from the crane against Zagreus’ chest. It creaked and cracked as he lifted his head to look up at Zagreus, a soft thumb rubbing up and down his jaw. 

Zagreus was fuzzy in the dark, the jut of his cheekbones and jawline catching the light, shaping his face. He was so much larger than life, bigger from looking from the small doll-like actors on the screen to the up close real life person in front of Hypnos, bigger from his intimate proximity. Bigger still as he drew close. 

Hypnos had stopped entertaining the thought of ever having a romantic partner. Years in a lonely single life had left him with the after taste that he was simply undateable. As his CFS had gotten worse over the years and especially after his diagnosis, he had resigned himself to a life of bachelorhood to the grave. 

To have Zagreus swoop in and not only dash all his expectations but prove them wrong time and time again was still a concept that Hypnos had to reconcile with. One he gladly would try to pick apart. 

Zagreus was a gentle kisser. Not as if he were afraid that he might break Hypnos, but in a way where he wanted to savor every second. Despite his enthusiasm, he matched Hypnos’ speeds, languid and lazy. Slow and savoring. He pressed against Hypnos, finding the exact perfect way to line their lips up, to perfectly slot into one another, before he moved again. Hypnos danced with him, mouth opening before leaning in for another lazy pass. 

Zagreus’ hands wandered, sliding down Hypnos’ sides, tracing his form. He pressed into the bulk of Hypnos’ hoodie to hold his waist just so. Interested in the shape of Hypnos’ body in a way that Hypnos had thrown out altogether. 

Hypnos smiled into the kiss, his numb arm getting some of its feeling back, and he wrapped his arms around Zagreus’ neck. Letting gravity do its dirty work, Hypnos decided to relish in the full potential of the couch and leaned back against it. Zagreus went down with him, a soft moan tickling in the back of his throat that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Hypnos’ hoodie hiked up from the fall and calloused fingers touched the edge of his hip. 

Far in the distance, ignored actors played out inconsequential drama, droned out by giggles and soft kisses. 

The front door opened. Zagreus jolted up off Hypnos, pushing up off the couch, hair sticking up at odder angles than normal. He was holding his breath, eyes wide like a startled deer in the headlights of a car that was clearly not going to stop. Hypnos limply climbed his body up the back of the couch just enough to peer over the edge. 

Thanatos stood in the door, backed by the night, looking like the beacon of death as he stared poison down at the two sprawled out on the couch. His hand fisted around the keys in his hand, jangling as his fingers tightened. His eyes wide, chin high, forcing him to look down at them and showing off sclera. His mouth was a long thin line, lips pressed so tight they were turning white. 

“Hey Than,” Hypnos said with a smile, slinking an arm over the back of the couch. 

“Its not what it looks like!” Zagreus said in a quick panic. 

“Really?” Hypnos asked. “Because it looks like we’re making out and we were making out.” 

The keys jangled again. 

Zagreus looked at Hypnos, a stupified whine behind his teeth as he tried to communicate something to Hypnos and he wasn’t quite sure what. He whipped his head back to Thanatos. 

“Listen,” he tried to reason with Thanatos, a nervous bouncing laughter in his tone. “This is normal right? I mean we are dating and people who are dating do this sort of thing so its to be expected Than, you understand right?” 

Thanatos remained stock still in his shock. The silence hung heavy in the air, punctuated by the gunfire from the long forgotten show. Someone shouted something indecipherable that didn’t matter. Hypnos could hear Zagreus swallow. 

“. . . run.” 

“What?” Zagreus asked. 

“Run, Zagreus,” Thanatos said. “Run fast. Run far.” 

Zagreus’ face fell, the blood draining from it. 

“Start running. Now.” 

The cold hit Hypnos hard as the weight of Zagreus’ body scrambled off his own. He panted, stumbling and almost crashing into the coffee table, and hopping as he ducked for his shoes. Thanatos moved out of the way so Zagreus could run outside into the night, still only clad in socks, over the damp wet of their lawn. The bars of his bike clanged as he picked it up, dropped it on the sidewalk, and picked it up again. The wheels whizzed into the night like bees fleeing a murder scene. 

Thanatos stood in the open doorway, watching his prey escape the oncoming threat. Once Zagreus was out of sight and out of sound, he looked back to Hypnos with a smirk on his face. 

“Thanatos,” Hypnos whined. “That wasn’t funny.” 

“Oh I beg to differ,” Thanatos chuckled, finally closing the door. “I think that was quite funny.” 

“You better apologize to him when he gets back,” Hypnos pouted, following Thanatos with his eyes as he turned the lights on. 

“Eh, maybe,” Thanatos said, still wearing the smirk. “Lets see how long I can keep him scared of me.” 

HYpnos buried his head into his arms and kicked his legs, complaining into the muffled pillows of the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insert run vine here
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	25. Control - Thanatos/Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos goes somewhere with Ares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is a little spicy meatball :3

“Did you want to go somewhere else?” 

The bar was at the peak of its capacity on a Saturday night, where the time shifted from today to tomorrow. Conversation fought against the steady rise of the music until all the noise mushed into indistinguishable sound. The question had been so low and smooth and rumbling, Thanatos shouldn’t have been able to hear it. An even tone that poured like honey from a silver tongue. 

He had heard it. 

Thanatos swayed on his stool, his world having long since slurred into a dream like haze. The crowd and venue around him blurred into nothing more than spots of color. The 4 or was it 5 cocktails he thought he had been nursing swam through his brain and the water he had tried to keep him sober had sorely failed at its job. 

It had been like any other night where Hermes insisted they all go out. An effort to get not just his boyfriend but his brothers out of the house. The one wheelchair accessible bar in town was their usual go to spot, despite Hypnos not being allowed to and not wanting to drink. Their crowd had gotten a little larger with Zagreus tagging along, but Thanatos welcomed the extra company. 

What he hadn’t been expecting was a certain lawyer sliding into the stool next to him. 

He hadn’t been expecting the conversation to be so engaging. 

He hadn’t been expecting to wave his brothers off when they left before him, despite Charon’s careful glare.

He hadn’t been expecting that question. 

He should have. 

Ares had been charming, he had been charismatic, he had been everything opposite and the same of what he had shown at the Home. A consummate professionalism had been slowly slid away, leaving an intimacy that Thanatos wasn’t sure if he wanted. 

That question stepped right over the boundary. 

With his brothers gone, in his inebriated state, with Ares looking at him  _ like that  _ it was simple to be sure. 

“Yes,” he said. 

They didn’t talk as they walked side by side down the street. The hairs on the back of Thanatos’ arms stood on end with the desire for Ares to touch him, but he made no move to do so. He had asked Thanatos to wait as he ducked into a convenience store, looking casual and in control as he stood at the counter under pale blue lights. Thanatos was unaware of the hotel they walked into, something with a high ceiling and a soft smell of lilac, the exact opposite of the taste in his mouth. He followed Ares into the elevator, ringed in a single long mirror that reflected their likeness into infinity. 

Thanatos struggled to look over at the man next to him. 

Ares had been consulting for the Home for years and for years now Thanatos had been working with the man. Listening to his words, his subtle praises and twisted words that could only be translated into one thing. The way he made Thanatos want and want and want. How he filled out those expensive suits of him, the pattern of the vitiligo on his face, the way his eyes gleamed, dark in the way blood was. 

The way he looked at Thanatos back. 

Thanatos was spiraling. He was the one who was always in control, who always had a plan and always had a to do list. There was always work to be done, brothers to look out for, a home to take care of. He had responsibilities. People depended on him. He wasn’t supposed to be making thoughtless, careless decisions like climbing into elevators with beautiful men who politely, respectfully did not touch him. 

Not until Thanatos did. 

Thanatos reached out, perspective both tangible and mental no longer in consideration. He reached for Ares and came a little short, only managing to fist a handful of fine fabric. His body listed heavy, stumbled forward and looking up at the immovable Ares. Pleading for him. Pleading to take control from him. 

Ares catered to him. 

Diving in for the kill, before Thanatos could even think, strong hands framed his face and pressed his body against the mirror. The glass shuddered like a gong from the impact. A harsh mouth was pressed against his lips, ordering him to open for Ares and a tongue that tasted of whiskey pushed against his own. Thanatos melted, his body going weak and limp, held up by every ounce of strength that Thanatos wanted from the man. 

He reached up to grip, to hold onto something and Ares once again spoiled him. He snatched Thanatos’ wrists and pinned his arms to the wall, pushing them up high above his head. He took all control from Thanatos, let him cascade and fall, let him be directionless, listless. It was okay to let go because Ares held the reins. 

Ares pushed up against him, a leg between his own and politely requesting that Thanatos spread. Hips pressed against his, a pressure that held Thanatos to the wall. The grip on his wrists tightened and Thanatos’ fingers trembled and splayed. He groaned into Ares’ mouth, whimpered, dissolved. 

The shudder of a stop and the blissful song of the elevator doors opening did nothing to stop them. Thanatos barely registered the pale yellow of the empty open hallway, far too distracted by the mouth that dragged him open, wet and wanting. Pressing up on his toes to meet Ares, to show him how much he wanted to be exploded and taken apart. How he finally broke down into the thousands of pieces that were always so tentatively held together. 

Ignored, the elevator doors began to close again and Ares shot a hand out to grip them open again. Sanguine eyes fixed Thanatos in place, promising all those little things that he had only hinted at. 

Hand still firmly clamped around Thanatos’ wrist, Ares dragged him out of the elevator and all Thanatos could do was stumble behind him. Carelessly unaware of the vaguely floral repetitive carpet or the tasteful sconce lights on the wall, not of the corner they took. The only thing that seemed to matter was the way the back of Ares’ suit coat folded between his shoulder blades. 

“Ares,” Thanatos said breathlessly. 

Ares looked over his shoulder and that second of vulnerability was all Thanatos needed to take his attack. He grabbed Ares by the lapels of his suit and dragged him back to where he belonged. Thanatos with his back against the wall and Ares on top of him. 

That hot mouth on his again, big strong hands pressing against his hips, pushing the small of his back against the chair railing that jutted out from the wall. 

Not content with known territory, Ares explored down his jaw, down his neck, pulling aside the collar of his shirt to reveal more. He suckled strong against the skin just below his ear, forcing Thanatos to tilt his chin high and pray to the heavens. His touch trailed over the shaved soft parts of the back of Ares’ head, fingers tangling through pale curls. Teeth dug in hard to sensitive skin and Thanatos called out. 

The door behind them creaked open and Ares whipped a glare over his shoulder. Possessive and threatening at whoever dared to interrupt them. The door closed again, but it was too late. 

The world had come crashing back in on Thanatos. On his bad decisions, on what he was doing, on his disappointments. 

On who he was supposed to be. 

He pleaded to Ares again. 

He didn’t want to feel.

With a single hand, Ares swiped the keycard over the lock on the door and it blinked green with a tiny chirp. He dragged Thanatos again, dragged him down to where he was, dragged him to where it was okay to not be who he was supposed to be. 

And Thanatos fell into his arms. 

____

Thanatos sat on the edge of the bed, buttoning the cuffs to his shirt in the dark. A motion so practiced that he could have done it with his eyes closed. With the sleepy haze in his eyes and the aching remnants of alcohol that was only just beginning to subside, he might as well have been. 

Outside large windows that hugged the corner of the hotel room, the city lights had gone out, too deep in sleep to still be twinkling. Their own lights had never been turned on and the details of the ostentatious room were nothing more than shadows of plush monsters in the corners. Thanatos had already disregarded them, gently placing everything about that night in a neat little box to be forgotten. 

A hand slid down his shirt, far too gentle in comparison from every other touch from that evening. 

“Where are you going?” a sleep addled voice rasped from behind him. 

Thanatos looked over his shoulder, once again having regained his typical cold aloofness. 

Ares was laid out face down on the bed, body nude and hidden under sheets that pooled around his waist. A broad back was on display and even in the dark Thanatos could see angry red lines where nails had raked down it. His hair was skewed and pressed against his face and a pleasant small smile rested lazily on his lips. 

“Come back to bed,” he said. 

Thanatos turned back around and shoved on his shoe. 

“I need to get home,” Thanatos said, tying up his laces tighter than necessary. 

Ares made a small noise of derision and the fingers that a just barely touched Thanatos’ back flopped back to the bed. 

“I’m not about to parade this in front of my brothers,” he said. 

“So I’m a dirty secret now?” 

Thanatos didn’t give the man the satisfaction of another glare. He stared out ahead, his body rocking as he finished the knot. 

Ares wasn’t a dirty secret. He was nothing. This was nothing. A one time thing, a stupid decision that Thanatos made because he was tired, because he was weak. He’d have defenses against it in the future. 

He stood up, but was stopped short. Hunched over, Thanatos looked down at the hand that once again held his wrist. Less commanding. A request, a limp hold that Thanatos could easily shake. He looked up to Ares and the smile was dropped. A stern seriousness the man was known for, eyes like pinpricks of light in the night. 

“Stay,” he said. 

Thanatos almost did. 

Instead, he shook the hand off his wrist and finally got to his feet. He scooped his jacket off the floor where Ares had thrown it and, without another word, walked out. 

There was a harsh sting on his neck and it was tender when Thanatos touched it. He could see it, dark and angry in the mirror, proudly showing off everything he wanted to set aside. 

Thanatos wondered how in the hell he was going to hide  _ that  _ from his brothers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things I did not expect: to like writing than as much as I do, feeling bad for Ares
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	26. Hickey - Charon & Thanatos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos is bad at hiding things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> working title for this one was "slut shaming" :3

Charon did not like Ares. 

Since their first introduction, Charon did not like the man. He didn't like his sharp eyes or his silver tongue. He didn't like the way he looked down at Charon even though Charon stood well more than a head taller than him. He especially did not care for the way Ares hit on his mother. 

He spoke to her like bedding Nyx was not a prospect but an inevitability. He talked to Charon as if he were ineffectual, that anything Charon did would just be a blip to disregard and nothing more. 

The worst of it all is that he was right.  _ And he knew it. _ Standing at Nyx's side, a hand on her back, he would shoot a look over at Charon that made his intentions  _ well known. _

Charon wanted to key the man's car. 

To see the same treatment applied to his little brother boiled Charon's blood. 

But he was careful, oh the shark was careful. He sat a respectful distance from Thanatos, kept his hands to himself, casually kept the conversation on light topics that still gripped Thanatos so. 

Charon half wished, half  _ prayed _ that Ares touch Thanatos' hand, his thigh, put his hand on Than's back the way he would their mother. Just so he'd have a justification to drag the man into the parking lot and show him just what he thought of Ares. But he did no such thing. He didn't do much look Charon's way, despite the death glare he was under, despite the way Charon listened to his every word for some leek of flirtatious intent. 

Ares was careful. 

Hermes had kicked Charon under the table. 

Charon had been very insistent when they left, letting Thanatos know that they would be ushering a sleeping Hypnos home from the bar and  _ wouldn't he like to come along too? _ But Than had said his good nights and goodbyes and waved Charon off like he was nothing more than an annoying fly. Already drunk and enraptured by the man that had his hooks in him. 

Charon had half a mind to drag his brother out by the ear, but his traitorous boyfriend grabbed him by the arm and hauled Charon out of the bar. 

"You keep saying he should be making friends," Hermes had said. 

<Yes but NOT WITH HIM>

Hermes had rolled his eyes. 

"He's having fun. Let your brother have a little fun." 

Charon spent the night stewing on the  _ fun _ Thanatos was having. The way he'd be taken advantage of, how Charon should have protected him better, kept him safe from the quality of person that Ares was. Kept him from wandering hands that strayed a little too far down Nyx's back and a knowing smile that dared Charon to try it. 

Charon was still awake when he heard the front door open. Quiet and the handle still turned to minimize the click of the lock when it was closed. Soft near imperceptible footsteps that padded just shy of his bedroom door. 

Sometime around 4 in the morning. 

Charon huffed, staring at his clock, knowing full well when the bar closed. 

Knowing full well what his brother had done. What had been done to his little baby brother. 

Rest did not find Charon that night and he was still seething when he heard Thanatos' bedroom door reopen. The coffee machine burbled and the sun was peeking over the horizon. 

Charon rose like a corpse from the grave to assess the damage from hurricane Ares. 

Thanatos wore a turtleneck. A black turtleneck that went almost all the way up to his ears. 

In the middle of summer. 

Even then, Charon could just barely make out the edge of a bruise that peeked from the hem. Taunting him. 

Charon stomped down the hall, fists swinging at his sides. 

Thanatos looked up, sluggish to see death when it was barrelling at him. Smudges from lack of sleep and a hangover darkened his eyes. His hair was slightly rumpled, natural curls that only formed if he hadn't showered. 

"Morning," he said, falling into a yawn. 

Charon didn't pause. He marched close enough to Thanatos to make his brother recoil and went for the turtleneck. 

"What're you–!?" 

Charon yanked it down to reveal a nasty looking bruise the exact size of a mouth. An angry shade of purple-red that puffed Thanatos' pale skin painfully. There were  _ indentations _ around the hickey and if Thanatos had been a corpse, the police would have been able to identify Ares from his dental work. 

Thanatos slapped a hand to cover the hickey up and scrambled backwards from his brother. He glared up at Charon with wide angry eyes. 

"What do you. . ." Thanatos glanced to Hypnos' door. <What do you think you're doing!?>

<I could ask you the same thing!?>

Thanatos practically shook with visible rage. 

<It's none of your business!> he said, his mouth clicking open angrily as he threw his hands at Charon. 

Charon went to argue back, his hands coming up in a fluster and sputter as he tried to find the words to how  _ stupid _ Thanatos was being. 

<You're being stupid!> he went with. 

"How dare–!" Thanatos shouted, forgetting himself once again. <What I do with my time and who I do it with is none of your concern. Aren't you the one who said I needed to get out more!?>

Charon was getting worked up enough that a small croak of offense rumbled in the back of his throat.

<I didn't mean sleeping around!>

Thanatos went red deep enough to match the heart of his bruise. He squawked indignantly. 

<I am an adult, Charon!> Thanatos said. 

<You're not acting like one>, Charon spat back. 

<That's rich coming from you!>

Thanatos threw his hand in the direction of the long hallway where all the bedrooms lay. Charon looked back over his shoulder. He couldn't see his door, but he knew Hermes was still curled up under the blankets in his bed. 

<That's different>, Charon argued. <He is my boyfriend!>

<Yeah, and I've come home to your  _ boyfriend _ shouting out  _ DADDY _ too many times.>

Charon felt his face prickle with heat and knew that the stare down that they were locked in was one of the few times where the familial resemblance truly came out. 

Hermes had hinted at the possibility of toys in the bedroom and never before that moment did Charon really want to gag his mouthy little boyfriend. 

Charon took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down and fixed Thanatos with an even level stare. 

<Why him?> he asked. 

Thanatos opened his mouth. Thanatos held up his hands. Thanatos went to say  _ something _ but nothing came out. Instead he made an incredulous noise of frustration and threw his hands up in the air. 

"I don't know!" he yell whispered. "Are you happy!?" 

No. Charon wasn't happy. He wasn't happy watching his brother make horrible decisions. He wasn't happy that Ares had spurred them on. 

He wasn't happy that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. 

More disappointed in himself than anything else, Charon shook his head and turned to go back to bed. 

Thanatos clutched his sleeve, effectively halting Charon in place. When he looked back down at his brother, Thanatos' eyes were wide and vulnerable. Scared in a way Charon had only seen a few times before. 

"Please don't tell Hypnos," he whispered. 

All the anger immediately fell from Charon. The same urge to protect him arose again, but Charon didn't know how. He looked to Hypnos' still shut double door. He had probably slept through the whole thing. 

Out of everything that had happened, not the act itself, not Charon shaming him, none of it was as bothersome to Thanatos than Hypnos knowing. The prospect that Hypnos, who had become the center and almost entirety of Thanatos' world, might know of a single imperfection, a single transgression, shook Thanatos more than anything. 

Charon could only nod. 

The door down the hallway opened up and Hermes came walking down the hall. He smiled sleepily at the sight of Thanatos. 

"Really?" he laughed. "You really think a turtleneck is gonna do it there, Than?" 

Thanatos groaned, pressing two fists to his forehead. He huffed and headed back to his room. 

"Tell mother I'm too sick to go to work today," he said. 

"Did you want some makeup?" Hermes asked. "That might work better." 

Thanatos held up a finger over his shoulder. 

Hermes smiled up at Charon, too amused for his own good. 

"At least he had fun," he said.

Thanatos slammed his door. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're all stupid 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	27. Tension - Thanatos/Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos gets an unwanted visitor

The stack of papers that splayed out over Thanatos’ desk were arranged in a neat fan so that he may see all the information inked onto them, but it still conveyed a mess. He tried to keep as neat and clean as possible, but the nature of his task went against his desire for order. 

His eyes flitted over numbers that he only had a base knowledge of and only just barely needed to comprehend. He scribbled down the requirements and requests of the family whose father had just passed and the financials they had to pay for it. He searched for their best possible options and their credit to work them through the worst time in their life. He filed away his own paperwork for tax season at the end of the quarter. He did all this with a detached patience that turned out to be the greatest skill he needed for his profession. 

Their face to face meeting would be later that afternoon and Thanatos would be well prepared before they came in. The last time they had spoke on the phone, they had been frustrated with the arbiter of the estate and Thanatos did not want to add to that frustration. He wanted to take this grieving family by the hand, as he did every grieving family that walked into the Home, and gently guide them through to the other side. 

It had all but ceased to come from a place of empathy and more out of duty. If he was empathetic, he would slide again. If he cared too much, then he would do too much. 

Thanatos needed to look out for himself, Hypnos and Charon had kept reminding him as much, and he strived to keep as much distance as he could from the mourning, while still functioning as a reliable pillar to lean on. A tight balancing act that on the best of days he walked admirably. 

He sighed and leaned into his palm. His fingers pressed to the inside of eyes where they jut against the bridge of his nose, the pressure almost pleasant against his sinuses. He steepled his hands, feeling the press from both sides until a sensation like breathing underwater began to swim behind his eyes. 

Thanatos had gotten up before the sun that morning, wanting to get a head start on the day. It seemed that the two cups of coffee he had already ingested simply weren’t doing their jobs. Maybe a third would work. 

The front door to the home clicked open, letting in the sound of rushing cars as they drove by the main drag. Just as sudden as it came, the sound was cut off, and the padding of soft footsteps up their carpeted stairs entoned at a library quiet volume. Thanatos peered over his hands, leaning as if he could see just beyond his office doors, to see who was coming in. He wasn’t expecting any clients that morning and wondered if it was for mother. 

Ares, dressed in his linen white suit and blood red tie, came around the corner. He perked up at the sight of Thanatos in his little box, a surprised smile quirking his lips. Amused more than anything. 

A frown sneered on Thanatos’ face and he felt the corner of his mouth tense. 

“So this is where you work,” Ares said, hands in his pockets and meandering closer. Like a shark. 

Thanatos sighed and folded his arms across his desk. 

“What can I do for you, Mr Mamertus?” he asked, perfectly professional. 

Ares stood in the tight doorway to the office, brows raised. He chuffed, mouth closed, a quiet little laugh that jolted his body. The quiet dangerous jovial mood he wore so casually, as if he were constantly in control of the situation. 

“Mr Mamertus?” he asked. “I didn’t realize we were so formal.” 

“I am clearly at work.” Thanatos waved one hand in the vague direction of his office, as if the stacks of papers, the monitor covered in sticky notes, the two hanging calendars on the wall and the one on his desk, the stained empty coffee mug, and the calculator clearly in use didn’t make it evident enough. “So if this isn’t a business call, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” 

Ares did not leave. He stepped into the yellow of the single diffused fluorescent light and up to Thanatos’ desk. He did not sit in one of the two chairs offered there, but instead walked around the corner. Two fingers rested atop the wooden laminate and trailed as he walked around. 

“I would say you’ve become my business,” he said. 

Thanatos kept a careful eye on the predator as he neared, as he rounded the desk and stepped behind it where only Thanatos was supposed to be. Employees only, stay out. But Thanatos said nothing. 

“Although if you want to keep this formal,” Ares said in that quiet smooth tone of his, deceptive and sweet and inviting into an open fly trap. “I could send you an invitation.” 

His touch came to rest at Thanatos’ elbow and Thanatos flinched away from it. The wheels of his chair rolled across the plastic pad on the floor. Ares had the good sense to pull his hand away. 

“My but you’re so tense,” he said, stepping behind Thanatos. “You’re letting all this weigh you down.” 

“Do you mind?” Thanatos snapped, turning his head to keep an eye on the lawyer. “I’m trying to–” 

Two hands came to rest on his shoulders. Thanatos’ head whipped forward, glaring out the door to his office to the quiet, almost homey, dim of the Home proper. Empty of all activity, waiting for the subdued somber bustle that would come, but leaving him alone with those hands. 

They squeezed lightly. 

“Ah there it is,” Ares purred. “All your tension. Its right here.” 

They moved slowly over his shoulders, rubbing over the soft woollen fabric of his sweater, and pressing through the layers to smooth out the muscle. Thanatos held his breath, his eyes wide, until Ares found a particular stubborn knot. He leaned, driving the palm of his hand into it, and Thanatos went limp at the pleasant press. His eyes relaxed and he breathed out slow. 

It was nothing, what they had. It meant nothing. The way Ares was able to walk into his personal space, to invade his day, meant nothing. The night they had in the hotel room was nothing. Thanatos had swore that it would never happen again and it wouldn’t. 

Despite how those hands pushed into the lines of his back. 

“There you go,” Ares said, hushed and soothing. “Isn’t that better?” 

It was. 

He made it so easy. He made it simple to give in to what Thanatos had been avoiding. Some base need, some selfishness, something that wasn’t work or home, where he could hide and pretend he didn’t have responsibilities. Somewhere where he could fall back into willing arms that pushed him down into a bed and whispered sweet things into his ear. A person that would mold back into those hands, to let them run over him. Where he could pull on a blood red tie and fall against whatever surface was most comfortable. 

Where he didn’t have to be so damn controlled. 

Thumbs pressed up the back of his neck, willing his head to flop forward, his bangs falling into his eyes. Hot breath ghosted over the shell of his ear and pushed up against that delicate barrier that separated restraint from explosion. 

Restraint won. 

With an irritated huff, Thanatos swatted at the hands as if they were nothing more than an annoying fly. He rolled his chair away, almost driving over patent leather shoes, and glared up at the man who invaded his territory. Ares held his hands up, smiling, the perfect picture of innocence. 

“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Mamertus?” Thanatos said and it came out like an accusation. 

Ares sighed and let his hands slide effortlessly back into his pockets. He stared heavy lidded down at Thanatos and he tried very hard not to remember that stare under a different context. 

Ares cleared his throat and finally stepped backwards out of Thanatos’ space. 

“Not with you, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m here for Nyx today.” 

Thanatos kept unblinking eyes on Ares, aware that if he gave the man an inch he would swallow him whole. Ares walked backwards out of Thanatos’ office, bowing slightly at the waist and giving Thanatos a slight nod of his head. 

“Although it was good to see you,” he said. “Mr Chthonic.” 

Thanatos watched him go, brow furrowed tight enough it was starting a headache. He held still, long after Ares was out of view, and listened to that same quiet steady gait go up the stairs to the second floor. He didn’t breathe until he heard a polite knock on mother’s office door and even then not until he heard it click shut. 

Thanatos deflated, breathing out harshly and burying his face in his hands. He groaned, letting his palms run up over his eyes and pull his skin, fingers driving up into his bangs and pushing them straight up. He glared down at the financials fanned out over his desk and tried to remember how to be detached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . .HHHNNNGGGGGGG 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	28. Twice - Thanatos/Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos makes a mistake. . . again

Thanatos lay face first in the pillows, his arms wrapped around his head and hummed. 

“This was a mistake.” 

Somewhere to his left, a deep voice huffed out a little laugh. 

“You don’t really believe that.” 

Thanatos turned his head to look up at the man he was currently sharing a bed with. A small part of Thanatos hated that it was the same hotel as last time. Hated the fact that there was a place that he went to do the exact same thing, _again_. Hated the thing he did. 

Hated the man he did it with. 

Ares sat next to him in the bed, situated on the other side of the significantly smaller room that they had rented for the entirety of the night. He sat upright, leaned against the headboard, the sheets pulled up to his hips. Dark skin decorated with vitiligo, puzzle pieces that Thanatos had been tracing with his tongue not an hour before. His fingers played along Thanatos’ shoulder, ghosting a touch over his skin like the white keys of a piano. 

It was simple to objectify the man. He was nothing short of stunning. It was the personality that soured the waters. 

It was the fact that Thanatos had returned to the well once again. 

“It was a mistake,” he repeated. 

Ares laughed at it like Thanatos had shared a joke. He leaned his head against the plush padded board that had been tacked to the wall. The dim orange of bedside lamps casting odd shadows across his face. His hair, mussed and rumpled but still managing to be stylish in the way fringe fashion was, flopped into his eyes. 

The way he smiled down at Thanatos could have been mistaken for fondness. 

Thanatos knew theater when he saw it. 

Ares hummed again, finally putting some pressure on Thanatos’ shoulder, and bowed his head. He pressed his lips against Thanatos’ bare shoulder. 

“A mistake you seemed very happy to make,” he said between all too gentle kisses. "Twice."

Thanatos’ eyes narrowed and he glared at the man. The corner of his lip twitched, pulling into a sneer. He let Ares continue to pepper him with slow kisses, travelling up his shoulder to his back, his touch tracing the dip in his spine. 

Thanatos shook him off before Ares could get any further. 

“It won’t happen again,” Thanatos huffed, looking away from Ares. 

Thanatos really wished Ares would stop laughing at every little thing he said. He wished Ares would stop demeaning him, dismissing him. 

He wished he didn’t like it. 

“Yes it will,” Ares said, full of mirth. 

His hand rested in his hair, a heavy touch. His thumb brushed through the strands, over the shell of Thanatos’ ear. Intimate, like a lover. Brushing back hair from his eyes, fingers ghosting across his temples. He leaned down again and that time, when he kissed Thanatos, it was just under his ear. 

Thanatos didn’t want to shiver. He didn’t want his heart to palpitate. He didn’t want his body to respond. 

They both knew it did. 

“This doesn’t have to be anything more than it is,” Ares said, hushed in Thanatos’ ear, making the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “Don’t overcomplicate this Thanatos.” 

Thanatos hid his face into the pillow. His brows pinched and a delicate frown turned down his lips. He didn’t want Ares to see him, not when he was so vulnerable. 

Even though Ares had already seen every corner. 

His shoulders tensed up and his arms tightened. He pressed his face into the feather down plush of the pillow and the high fiber count of the sheets. Hating the way Ares’ lips on his neck made him feel. 

“Stop thinking Thanatos,” Ares said. “You don’t need to think here.” 

Instantly, the rising tension sapped from Thanatos. He let his weight sink into the sheets. His shoulder succumbed and he rested against the bed. A long breath seeped from him and he didn’t so much press his head into the pillow as he let gravity pull him down. 

Thanatos liked that. Thanatos  _ really  _ liked that. 

The constant treadmill that ran in his mind could never be shut off. Needed for work, needed for home, dominated by the continuous onslaught of to do lists and responsibilities, of never ending work both thrust upon him and self inflicted. A taut coil of steel wire that pulled his body into multitudinous directions until he was near the breaking point of drawn and quartered. 

He liked how it was all wiped away when in the throes of pure physicality. He liked how the instinctual needs of his body overruled the  _ tick tick tick  _ of his mind. 

He liked how Ares took away all thought. 

He liked how Ares took over, how he held the control, how from movement to movement there were no decisions that Thanatos had to make. He had to come along for the ride, nothing more and nothing less. 

Thanatos hated how he liked it. Liked how he hated it. 

He sighed and turned his head again, facing Ares this time, allowing him to look upon his confliction. Ares slid down the bed, worming his way to Thanatos’ side, cupping his face. Thanatos could feel the heat from Ares’ breath against his lips against his own and could taste the enticing promises they held. 

Sober and clear and consequence free, but still so very complicated. 

“Stay this time,” Ares said, his smooth voice so soft that it almost cracked. 

Thanatos examined the man, eyes scanning over his face, looking for the deception he normally carried, the blood lust that hid under his skin, and he couldn’t find it. 

Without answering, Thanatos wound his arms around Ares’ neck and pulled the man down on top of him, so he wouldn’t have to think again. 

Thanatos didn’t stay the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then theres this on fire garbage can. . . 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	29. Thrice - Thanatos/Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its not a mistake, its a bad decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Thanatos continues to be a clown

“Take me to a hotel.” 

The words fell out before Thanatos could think on them too hard. A demand, not a request. 

The laugh he got in response was expected. A pause of stark shock followed promptly but the charming sound, like melodic bells that chuckled at him, not with. 

It was broad daylight, middle of the day, hardly the appropriate time for such requests. Thanatos was between clients. His stress level was low, he was sober, he had no excuses. Running across handsome lawyers on their lunch break was not a part of his agenda, but had come into the city. The thought that he might just meander at the quaint shopping centers in the more bohemian part of town had been his intention and he could keep denying the knowledge that it was within walking distance of a certain law firm. 

That the chance run in hadn’t been fabricated. 

Thanatos had taken the outdoor seating of the cafe to enjoy the sunshine, not so that he was blatantly visible. Not on the stereotypical lunch break. He had sat there for hours because it was pleasant, no other reason. 

Ares had found  _ him _ , not the other way around. Ares had sat down at  _ his  _ table. Ares had bothered  _ him. _

They had talked. It was almost cordial, polite, pleasant. Thanatos managed to keep up an annoyance throughout, that the witty way Ares navigated a conversation wasn’t engaging and intriguing. His laugh didn’t tug at Thanatos’ lips and make him smile. His beauty was objective, that was all, nothing more. 

Thanatos didn’t flinch back when Ares had reached his fingers across the table and brushed against his own. 

Ares almost paid for Thanatos’ lunch, long having since been eaten and taken away, but Thanatos wouldn’t let him. He didn’t let him touch Thanatos as they walked down the street together. He didn’t let him get too near. 

But still, Ares did. 

A hand that ghosted over his back, words that brushed past his ear, the shiver that ran down Thanatos’ spine. 

Nothing to do, no one to appease, hours to waste. 

And a beautiful man who wanted him. 

“Take me to a hotel,” Thanatos repeated. 

They had meandered between buildings, away from the crowds and into the shade of the brick walls. Surrounded by puddles that seemingly never evaporated and fire escapes, trapped in that empty place with Ares seemed apt, reminding Thanatos of all the holes they had been squeezed in together before. 

“You aren’t one for subtlety are you?” Ares said, laughter still bouncing on his voice. He swayed forward, stepping dangerously into Thanatos’ space. “You are a man of surprises.” 

Thanatos stood his ground, staring at Ares and waiting for the man to take him away. Waiting to have the day to himself and find that moment where he could breathe again. 

“Lets just go,” he said. 

“No,” Ares said. 

Thanatos bristled. He frowned deeply, his nose crinkling in distaste. Ares slid his hand alongside Thanatos’ face, smooth fingertips running across his skin, all too familiar. This one he flinched from, not far enough to get away, but just enough to sneer at the offending palm. 

“You had said it was a mistake,” Ares said, too close, close enough to taste the coffee on his breath. “You had said that it wouldn’t happen again.” 

“And you had said it would,” Thanatos said. 

“So what you’re saying is I’m right,” Ares said. He finally settled his palm on Thanatos’ cheek, holding him in place, closer still until his smart wingtips nudged the front of Thanatos’ business casual loafers. “And that you’re wrong.” 

Thanatos’ eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move. He ignored the way his heart pounded, the way his skin crawled, the itching urge to lunge forward and kiss full lips right then and there. 

“Say that you’re wrong,” Ares said. “Tell me this isn’t a mistake.” 

Thanatos’ mouth pressed into a thin line, his jaw tightened. Ares ran his thumb over Thanatos’ lower lip, dragging it to the side and forcing his jaw to unclench, his eyes focused solely on Thanatos’ mouth. 

“Willful boy,” Ares said and the words sank deep into Thanatos. Like claws hooked under his skin. 

“Say it,” Ares ordered. 

And Thanatos had no choice. 

“Its not a mistake,” Thanatos spat petulantly. “Its a bad decision.” 

Ares’ next laugh brushed against Thanatos’ lips. He leaned in, whispering words that Thanatos could taste. 

“Very well then,” he said quietly. “Let me be a bad decision.” 

Thanatos breathed finally. A shaking unsteady thing as Ares pressed against him. The slip into a place where he could stop again, where the persistent knot in his chest could unwind. Where Ares could sink between his ribs and pull gently on the ends, prying it from its entanglement.

Ares held Thanatos still, hand on his face, tongue against his lips. Thanatos held still for Ares, fists at his sides, and opening wide. 

Ares pulled back, leaving Thanatos, eyes closed and leaning in forlornly for more. 

“Take me to a hotel,” he whimpered. 

Ares laughed and pat Thanatos’ on the cheek with a flesh tap. He rested his hand on the small of Thanatos’ back, an action that Thanatos allowed, an action that very much happened, and lead him to his car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. . . look at this dumb slut
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	30. Love - Charon/Hermes, Thanatos & Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon and Hermes' anniversary

The knock at the door was politer than usual. 

"I got it! I got it!" Hypnos raced to the front door in a competition with no one. He guided his chair to the front door and opened it with a flourish, knowing full well who was on the other side. 

"Hello," Hermes said, hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on his toes. "Can Charon come out to play?" 

He was the most put together then his typical fashion. Dressed in slacks, fine shoes that shone in the afternoon light, and a dark vest with a subdued paisley pattern. His sleeves were rolled up to show off tan forearms, deliberate and neat, a style choice rather than function. He wore gold pieces, cuffs that hooked around his ears, a ring on a necklace around his neck that once belonged to someone else. Even his eyes were accented with gold. 

He danced his fingers in a little wave. 

"If you keep staring I might get a complex," Hermes said. 

"Charon!" Thanatos called. "Your date's here!" 

The three of them waited around in silence. Hermes stopped rocking back and forth, looking about as excited as a prom date. The single long stemmed flower he held behind his back poked out so that a handsome purple bloom was just barely visible.

"Where are you going tonight?" Hypnos asked. 

"Ah ah ah!" Hermes wagged his finger in the air. He pressed it to his lips like he was sharing a secret. "That's a surprise." 

He gave Hypnos a little wink. 

"Yeah but I'm not going," Hypnos explained. "You can slip your secrets to me."

Hermes' smile was filled with pity, but his eyes flicked to Thanatos. 

"Don't worry," he said, not a hint of tease in his tone. "I'm spoiling him." 

Thanatos huffed once and opened his mouth to call for his brother again. The cry paused halfway as the dark figure made its way down the hall. 

Charon dressed to match Hermes, in dark colors and boots, decked out in his usual accents of necklaces and rings, but it was the finer details. The quality of his button down was nicer. His jeans looked new. His hair was groomed in an attempt to defeat it. He gently placed his hat on his head and fixed his eyes first on his brothers, then on his date. 

Hermes had puffed up, swollen with a deep inhale, a light blush kissed his cheeks and an excited restrained smile pushed against them. 

"Well don't you look handsome," he said, his voice wobbling without it's usual lilt. 

His unusual energy met Charon and a soft smile graced his lips. They stood in silence, glowing in the sunset. A crystalline stillness froze in the air, a moment that was shared just between them and no one else. Thanatos and Hypnos might as well have not been there.

Hypnos' little V shaped smile widened as he glanced back and forth between the two silent statues, like a spectator at a tennis match without a ball. 

"Is your date here? In the house?" he asked. 

"Ah! C'mon big man," Hermes said, waving an arm to usher Charon out of the house. "We've got reservations." 

That got Charon moving. He slipped his hands into his pockets and took his time making his way to the door. Hermes kept waving his arm, grinning up at his date, and offered his arm for Charon to take. Charon laughed, a light huff under his breath, and turned back to his brothers. 

<don't wait up> he said.

"Thanks I won't," Thanatos grimaced at the implication of too much information. He followed Charon to the door, taking it from Hypnos, poised to close. "Have fun!" 

Charon waved one hand in the air, his other slunk low to lightly hook into Hermes' offered elbow. Together they walked arm in arm to the hearse parked at the end of the driveway. 

Thanatos clicked the door shut, but made no move to step away. He peered out the window insert and Hypnos pulled aside blinds. Together they watched their brother. 

At the hearse door, Hermes presented Charon with the flower. The continuous smile that uncharacteristically stayed cemented on his face sparkled at the gift. He accepted it, brought the blossom to his face, and took a deep inhale, eyes closed and lost in a bliss. When he found himself again, he turned that smile to Hermes, rested a hand to his cheek, and bent down to meet him. 

The kiss was practically chaste. A simple thing really. But it held for a beat too long. Lingered too much to be platonic. The way Hermes seemed to melt, his eyes closed and evidence of his heart breaking and reforming apparent by his expression. Charon, face hidden by hair and hat, was not much better. From the way he fiddled with the stem and the way he didn't leave. 

It was slow, but it was passion. 

Charon pulled away and Hermes, soft and pliant, smiled with heavy eyes up at him. He spoke, saying something neither one of the peepers could hear, but was probably something along the lines of _happy anniversary._

"Oh," Thanatos said, a noise that seeped from his subconscious. 

Hypnos looked up to his brother, letting the blinds fall. Thanatos only continued to stare. Outside, two car doors closed and an old engine turned over. 

"Are you feeling okay?" Hypnos asked. "Bathroom is down the hall if you need it."

Thanatos stayed in place, still watching despite it no longer being what he would have deemed as polite. He didn't look away until the hearse had pulled out of the driveway and down the block, as the spell was broken. Thanatos stepped from the door, blinking sleep and bewilderment from his eyes, face skewed in consternation as he inspected the floor. 

"Hm," he said. 

Hypnos scooted closer. 

"You're scaring me Than, you know that right?" he said on a shaky voice. 

Thanatos finally looked up, as if noticing Hypnos was there at all. 

"They're really in love," he said. 

Any genuine fear Hypnos had dissipated in an instant. He sat up straight and hiccuped a little laugh. 

"Well I sure hope so. This is what? Their–" He counted on his fingers. "Fourth year running? It'd sure be a scam to someone if they weren't." 

"No I mean. . ." Thanatos waved his hand in the air and pinched the bridge of his nose, gathering his thoughts. "I know they're dating but Charon's never. . . Hermes is always here as just this guy who hangs out with Charon and of course they’re dating. . it just never occurred to me that. . . " 

"Is it because they kissed? Because you know they've kissed before. You see Than, when two consenting adults care for each other very much–" 

"It's not that." Thanatos pressed his hand over his eyes. It held tight as it traveled down his face, delicately framing around the bottom half as he stared out to where the hearse had been. "They're just. . . really in love."

Continued confusion emanated from Thanatos as he stared out the insert, a misconstruction of worry, but not for his brother. Hypnos stayed quiet, waiting for further explanation that never came. 

Thanatos' eyes darted whip quick to look at Hypnos, followed shortly by the slow turn of his head. His hand fell free, hovering just shy of his chin. 

"Do you have this with Zagreus?" he asked carefully. 

Hypnos perked up. He had never considered that before. The relationship with Zag had been slow, easy going, simple. It was without complication and Hypnos liked that. Zagreus made him happy and giddy in a way that shone like sunshine and made him want to get out of bed in the morning. He felt safe and comfortable around Zagreus and constantly wanted to be around him. 

There was no need to overthink their relationship because it just was the way it was. There had been no need to question if he was in love or not. Suddenly confronted with the question. . . 

"Yes," Hypnos said. 

Thanatos seemed hurt by that, more confused. He nodded as if he understood, looking to the floor with a thousand yard stare. 

"Do you have that with Ares?" Hypnos asked. 

Thanatos instantly went rigid. His head snapped up, eyes wide, arm dropping to his side. Stiff in all the ways a hunted animal was. 

"How did you. . .?" 

It was true, Hypnos and Than hadn't exactly talked about the affair he was having, Thanatos wasn't particularly good at hiding it and Ares didn't even try, but Hypnos figured it was best not to bring it up. It seemed like one of those things that Thanatos didn't like drawing attention to, like how he sang in the shower or still fretted over Hypnos. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. 

Hypnos didn't flinch, just waited on Thanatos to come to a conclusion the way he just had. To unfold all the ways Ares made him feel in the few short seconds that were needed. 

The shock slid from Thanatos in waves. His wide eyes slowly went slack and high shoulders fell. He sighed, his mouth pressing into a thin line. 

"No," he said flatly. 

"Oh," Hypnos said. 

Another moment of stillness passed, this one with less sunset serenity and more awkward silence. Thanatos looked away, his head bouncing idly. Hypnos drummed his fingers on his arm rest. 

"You know Than. You can always come to me if you need to–" 

"You wanna do a puzzle?" Thanatos said suddenly. "Let's do a puzzle." 

He all but power walked from the front door to the back closet where they kept a small collection of puzzles stacked in alphabetical order the way Than liked. He swung the door open with too much force, nearly ripping it off its hinges. 

"What kind do you want to do?" he called out too loud, squatting to pull from the stack. 

Hypnos sighed and watched his brother. It was better to let sleeping dogs lie. For now. 

"One with cats."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanatos: emotionally constipated clown I love bulying this man 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	31. Dancing - Zagreus/Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zagreus and Hypnos dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zagnos makes me weak
> 
> they give my diabetes

Limbs creaked and crackled with morning bleariness as soft socked feet shuffled down the hallway. Wood that had been placed decades ago had settled into positions far from one another and sang with each step. The fuzz of rainbow colored socks meant not for everyday wear but the warmth and comfort of sleep left behind filaments that caught in splinters and danced in the air. The musical dissonance of muted horns on an off beat waking rhythm and the hiss of too much oil in a pan. Hypnos yawned loudly into his hand as he rounded the corner. 

"Oh! You're up!" Zagreus said from his post at the stove. 

Hypnos smacked his lips a few times, eyes barely open as they acclimated to the dim light of the home that wasn't his. A figure blurred into place, it may have been human shaped but that conclusion was still up in the air. It was smiling. 

"That remains to be seen," Hypnos said and tottered to the blurry figure. 

As he neared, consciousness seeped into his bones and Zagreus congealed into view. Smile first, sleep mussed hair close behind. Instinctually, Hypnos' hands rose at the proximity and snaked around Zagreus' girth. He leaned his weight against the stout body, going boneless and limp. Zagreus  _ oof' _ d at the impact, laughter bubbling under his breath. 

"I wouldn't recommend going back to sleep," he said, focused on scraping a spatula across a sizzling pan. "I'm not exactly a chiropractically approved mattress." 

"We should do a study then," Hypnos muttered into Zagreus' neck. He nuzzled his head, the cartilage of his nose flicking as it was pushed against hard muscle. "I'll be the control group. Get on the ground, let's do a test run."

Zagreus snorted, driving the tip of the spatula into the pan, scraping and scratching at fresh adhesions of egg against the supposed non stick. Hypnos turned his head, peering down at the mess. It looked like it had once been a cheery pale yellow and was working its way to a darker hue. 

“What are you doing?” Hypnos asked. 

Zagreus’ mouth pressed into a thin line and his brows pinched as he too tried to decipher what it was he was doing. 

“I wanted to make you breakfast,” he said. 

“Aww,” Hypnos said, pressing further into Zagreus’ side. “Thats the nicest thing anyone in this apartment has ever done for me.” 

“It was supposed to be eggs.” 

Hypnos propped his head on Zagreus’ shoulder, looking down at the ‘supposed to be eggs’ with fond inspection. 

“They looked extra crunchy,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Zagreus said. “Sorry about that.” 

“Why?” 

Zagreus snuffed in a laugh and turned to look at Hypnos. Perched on his shoulder like that, the proximity was a little too close to really see one another and the skin of Zagreus’ neck folded awkwardly. A fuzzy smile and a series of bedhead. On reflex Hypnos tilted in and they shared a closed mouth, death breath kiss, a little too long to be a peck, but not headed anywhere further. 

As if everyday was like that.

Zagreus snuck in two more quick kisses before he turned back to the smoldering mess on his stove. He clicked off the gas and scraped the remains onto a plate.

“Its good to see you up and about,” he said idly. “How are you feeling today?” 

Hypnos leaned most of his weight onto Zagreus’ shoulders, knowing he could take it, letting his legs flop uselessly.

“Remains to be seen,” Hypnos reported. 

“And your knees?” Zagreus asked. “Are they doing any better?” 

“Shhh.” Hypnos smooshed a finger to Zagreus’ lips, distorting them. “They’re not awake yet.” 

“Oh, okay,” Zagreus whispered. “Then I’ll just be very quiet.” 

He reached over to the little wireless speaker that he kept on one of the display shelves in the corner nook. A fancy little splurge that perpetually filled the kitchen with music. Zagreus had a penchant for upbeat major key tunes that often permeated his home and Hypnos pondered if it was always that way, even when empty. Every nook and cranny filled with joyous noise at all times. 

Zagreus didn’t even ghost the power switch before Hypnos caught him by the wrist, prompting a silent question aimed right back at him. 

“I like this song,” Hypnos explained. 

“You. . . you like this song?” Zagreus asked, his grin splitting, as bright as the pick up beat. 

“Yes?” Hypnos questioned both Zagreus and himself. 

“Not very many people like this kind of music.” Zagreus spun around in Hypnos’ grip, his hands coming to rest on slim hips. “I always just assume that you’re putting up with it.” 

“Oh I don’t settle for anything.” Hypnos smiled broad and lazy. 

Giggles filled the kitchen, just underneath the sound of trumpets and guitar. Zagreus leaned into the hug and Hypnos stumbled backwards, moving on shuffling feet into the center of the kitchen. One of them swayed, unsure who moved first, but the other followed. The quick off beat slid from one song into the next, a melody that all blended together due to genre. A bounce built in Zagreus’ steps, an excitement he normally carried all the way down to his marrow. 

He stopped short. 

“Oh,” he said, face going blank. “Can you. . ?” 

Careful and considerate, almost too much to handle, Zagreus still probed which boundaries were acceptable to cross rather than step right over them. 

Hypnos took a step back, letting long fingers trail ice cold down the inside of Zagreus’ arms, until finally settling into his palms. Their fingers intertwined with one another in a loose grasp. Hypnos leaned back, extending long graceful limbs. 

“I don’t mind spending the spoons,” he said. 

Zagreus laughed and began to move again. 

Without rhythm, almost graceless, they wiggled around one another. Taking strange bouncing steps in arrhythmic circles, legs kicked up at certain intervals, chins ducked with restrained giggles or heads thrown back with boisterous laughter. Zagreus raised one arm and Hypnos ducked under it, his lanky body hunching underneath the bridge. Once through he was pulled flush against Zagreus, a hand splayed hard and wide on his lower back. They swayed against one another, not in time with the tune but with each other. 

The song switched and they danced. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So theres a playlist for each of the ships in this fic and the Zagnos one has ska on it and thats what they're dancing to and I love them 
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


	32. Can't - Thanatos/Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ares asks an important question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working title for this one: two clowns in a clown car

Thanatos got dressed. He sat up in bed, swung his legs over the side one at a time and rolled his neck until it cracked. A heavy sigh heaved his shoulders, squared them off, and he was dressed again. The persona he wore to work, the shield he held up for the world, slipped on like a second skin. 

Without a second glance, he got up and walked to the bathroom. The glaring light draped a rectangular beam across the floor and was promptly sealed off as the door closed, leaving nothing but the bar that seeped through the gap. A second later, the spray of temperate water turned on, background white noise to the quiet of the hotel room. 

Ares watched it all happen as he always did, the moment Thanatos turned back into a stick up his ass pumpkin. It rang like the dinging bell at the end of a boxing match that yet again their time was up. His time. His time with Thanatos. 

Ares ran his hand over the side of the bed that would once again go unused. 

Weeks of this. Once a week, practically scheduled like clockwork. Twice, if it had been a particularly bad week for Thanatos. If Ares was lucky. 

There was no phone call, apparently exchanging numbers was over the line for the funeral director's delicate sensibilities. Having some semblance of connection, acting like real human beings with some form of a relationship, was too much of an acknowledgment. Ares would find him lingering in his office or alone in the same bar on the same stool on a Friday night. He would be conveniently in the neighborhood, sniffing around Ares' place of business like some sort of alley cat. Showing up half cocked, practically presenting himself in the odd language they shared was acceptable, but apparently phone calls were undignified. 

Ares' hand curled into a fist, taking the pillow case with them. He knew why. He knew if there was a phone call, then this was real. He knew that it meant something more than what it was. That they weren't just mutually using one another. 

Ares looked up to the bathroom door, light haloed around it. He couldn't calm the resent that had been building. That Thanatos in the daylight despised him, turned his nose up at him, but transformed behind hotel doors, desperate for Ares, whispering and pleading. 

Every snub in the waking world drove the thorn deeper into Ares' side. 

The shower stopped. Ares unclenched. He breathed out low and slow, setting aside the petulance. It would do him no good. 

Thanatos walked out of the bathroom, steam following him out and pluming against the ceiling. He ran a towel idly through his hair, eyes even and focused on his next task. No waver, no glance in Ares' direction Ares watched with fascination, possessive in the way Thanatos bent over to pick up his pants. 

"Go out with me," he said. 

That caught Thanatos' attention. He looked over his shoulder to Ares, his pants pulled halfway up his legs. His brow knit tight in consternation, working through a puzzle that he didn't quite understand. 

Ares sat up, propping himself up on one elbow. 

"As in a date," he said matter-of-factly. 

Thanatos scoffed, a bitter smile playing on his face, and he pulled his pants up the rest of the way. He said nothing, only refocused on the task of fastening his belt. He shook his head, humor evident through quiet laughter. 

"I'm serious," Ares said. 

"No," Thanatos said. He picked up his shirt, but he wasn't looking at Ares. 

He didn't look at things that were too hard for him. 

"And why not?" Ares asked, leaning against his fist. 

Thanatos pulled his shirt over his head. When his hair got wet, when it was getting to the point where he needed that severe edge to be trimmed again, small curls formed at the base of his neck. 

Ares stared, shoving aside the adoration for those curls. 

Thanatos turned, his ever calculating mind aimed down at Ares, fully clothed and judging the way Ares wasn't. The same look he gave every time Ares asked him to stay. 

"It's a bad idea," Thanatos said. 

It was Ares' turn to laugh. He couldn't help it. The boy was insufferable. 

He got under his skin. 

"That's not an answer," he said. "That's a judgement." 

Thanatos shook his head and bent down to pick up his shoes. He rested one hand against the mattress, his weight making folds in the sheets. Attention away from Ares and hair hiding his eyes. 

Ares grabbed his wrist, commanding but not restraining. He knew he was using what feeble little power he had over Thanatos. That in those spaces they occupied together, Ares had one instrument to make Thanatos fall to his whim. He did not abuse it, he did not push that cellophane wall Thanatos had built. 

But Ares was creeping towards desperation. 

He sat up, reaching for Thanatos, hoping to pull him back to the bed. To stay. 

He met lips that would always melt for him, always open. Moving as Ares coaxed, following where he led. Thanatos held his breath, soft and pliant and full of all the care he would give to Ares in that place. In their place. 

"Tell me you don't want to," Ares said against his lips. "Tell me you don't care for me." 

Thanatos didn't laugh that time. He kept his head bowed, shoes in hand, frozen. Completely within his own power to walk away, but held in place by Ares. Ares tightened his grip, waiting on Thanatos, waiting for denial. 

It never came and Ares let go. 

Without a word, Thanatos put on his shoes and headed to the door, leaving Ares to watch a coiled back. Just as tense leaving as it had been coming in. One more sight for Ares to take in as he waited for another week, hoped for it to be less, to see Thanatos as he was again. 

"Go out with me," Ares said again, unashamed of the control he lacked on the second ask. 

Thanatos stopped with his hand on the handle. His fingers shifted, adjusting to the grip. Even from that vantage, Ares could make out the tightness in his jaw. He finally looked up, trying to be the stern man he wore on a day to day basis, but only came out confused. 

"I can't," he said. 

Not staying to hear any arguments, Thanatos left. Disappearing in a flash of hallway light.

Ares flopped back down to the bed. He rested his hand on the pillow again, the same one refused week after week. In a pathetic fit of frustration, he pushed it off the bed. 

And wondered if it was worth it to stay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ares won't wait around forever, Than
> 
> Twitter: [OhNo_Hello](https://twitter.com/OhNo_Hello)  
> Tumblr: [ScrumpyLikesThings](https://scrumpylikesthings.tumblr.com/)


End file.
